Description of the attraction
Zaneman Jewish cemetery is the only one of the three Jewish cemeteries in Grodno that have survived to this day. How old this cemetery actually is, experts find it difficult to give an answer. The first Jews appeared in Grodno presumably in the 12th century. Tombstones dating back to the 18th century were found at the Zaneman Jewish cemetery, however, many of the slabs have gone underground from antiquity.
Zaneman cemetery was located outside the city. Basically, Jews were buried in the Old and New Jewish cemeteries in Grodno. The new Jewish cemetery, which, despite its name, was already several hundred years old, was plowed up in the mid-1950s. Monuments and tombstones were used to strengthen the pedestal of the monument to Lenin, and on the site of the plowed field, the Red Banner stadium was later built (the modern name of the stadium is Neman). Partial reburial of the remains was made only during the reconstruction of the stadium in 2003.
The old Jewish cemetery was located near the Lutheran Church on Bolshaya Trinity Street. There is now a parking lot in its place. Nobody did the reburial, because the descendants of those who are buried in the cemetery were destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. All the authorities did was to rake up old bones, fragments of monuments and earth and transport all this to the territory of the Zaneman Jewish cemetery. Now these ancient graves, turned into a mountain of earth and broken stone, rest next to the graves in the Zaneman Jewish cemetery.
At the Zaneman Jewish cemetery there is the grave of Alexander Ziskind, the author of Yesod Veshoresh Ha-Avoid, who died in 1794.
