Bagnowka Cemetery Restoration: Prospectus 2024

Following the BCRF’s extensive meetings with conservators, craftspeople and the City of Bialystok in August 2022, additional restoration projects beyond Bagnowka Cemetery are also being coordinated. The first project completed was the Memorial Pillar (2023) that remembers victims of two 1905 massacres in Bialystok and the brutal 1906 pogrom. Restoration of the ohel (mausoleum) for Chief Rabbi Chaim Hertz Halpern (d. 1919), originally funded by the Bialystoker Center in New York (1921), is also planned. A symbolic ohel is planned at the former gravesite for Chief Rabbi Shmuel Mohilewer (d. 1898), founder of this cemetery and one of the founders of Religious Zionism. Rabbi Mohilewer’s remains were reinterred in 1991 by his followers in Mazkeret Batya Cemetery, Israel.

Repair to the cemetery’s infrastructure is also planned, to include repair of the cemetery’s wall, new wrought-iron entrance gates, and repair of fencing along the eastern border. Connection to city water supply was provided by the City of Bialystok in 2023. Clearing of the still-wooded sections of this cemetery by the City continues, enabling restoration and documentation of the gravesites still extant within.

The following document provides a more detailed look at these planned restoration projects, including historical photos and artist’s renditions of the restorations. As formal design concepts become available, this document will be updated. Cost estimates for these projects can also be found at the end of this document.

For those wishing to support the efforts of the BCRP in this restoration, please visit the organizational website www.bialystokcemeteryrestoration.org or GoFundMe20245cefc or Here.