**Although I will never be able to understand what it is like to be Jewish, my work this month brought to mind the struggles and physical toil the Jews experienced during WWII.
(Sunrise at the Jewish Cemetery, Bitola, Macedonia.)
As I pushed the wheelbarrow up the hillside, sweat dripped from my brow… Suddenly my thoughts were filled with images I’d seen in school… Jews in concentration camps, pushing wheelbarrows full of human corpses, unloading them into holes in the ground; mass graves… Undoubtedly, sweat streamed down their skin, outlining the skeleton frame that was left of their once solid figure… Excruciating labor; in the elements; they worked; they suffered; they died… So, here I was, with a wheelbarrow, pushing my body ‘til it ached, in a Jewish cemetery to somehow honor God’s chosen people…
For our first couple weeks in Macedonia, the focus of our ministry has involved honoring and restoring the memory of the Jewish community in Bitola, that is no more. We began by chopping wood… We were to chop 3,380 pieces, to be exact, and each piece was required to be able to stand upright on its end. Strange, we thought… Why such a specific number? Why do they need to be able to stand on end?
Back in 1943, the Nazis stole all the Jews from this city, taking them to Auschwitz and Treblinka, concentration camps in Poland. They took 3,380 people, to be exact. It’s our understanding that none of them survived the camps. And so, each block of wood represents a life that was taken. A ceremony will soon be performed to honor this community.
After the Nazis left, the Bulgarian army came in and took some of the marble headstones from the Jewish gravesite. They made them into tables, used them to line swimming pools, and even paved the streets with them. As time went on, the cemetery fell into disarray, forgotten by the years…
In 1998, after some time away, a man who was born in Bitola returned to the city. He found the local shepherds herding sheep on the hillside of the cemetery. In response, he wrote a book about the history of Jews in this city. Fast forward to a year ago… One of the locals, named Mima, came across the book… Aware of the condition of the cemetery, she and a friend vowed to restore the cemetery. That’s where we come in…
A plan was drawn up that includes monuments, shrubbery and a nice walking path throughout the cemetery. We are here to clear the way to bring this plan to completion. Joining us is a team of youth from evangelical churches in Germany and Russia.
After WWII ended, Germany instituted a program of reconciliation as a way of extending a helping hand to the posterity of those whom the Nazis decimated. (We first learned about this program when we were in Ukraine… Descendants of Nazi soldiers can find out through governmental records what kind of work their parents or grandparents were involved in and where the work was done. With this information, many then travel to the cities and families affected, seeking forgiveness and reconciliation.) The German and Russian teams are here as part of this work, though not specifically related to their own family members involvement during the war, but simply as representatives of their nations to bring about restoration and goodwill. And so, we’ve been working together to restore the cemetery.
As we’ve been working, we’ve come across many strange things… Pulling up weeds and raking the dirt have revealed broken glass, lots of onions, bullet casings, and even bones. One day, after coming across an unexploded bullet, the Germans requested that the tenants of the cemetery take a metal detector across the hillside to be sure there were no more unexploded bullets. So, after the groundskeepers scoured the hillside, we learned they had come across an unexploded grenade! Oh, how God was protecting us as we worked!
Along the perimeter of the cemetery, countless bones were discovered; big, hefty bones! Some were so large we wondered if they were human… We later found out that the bones were pig bones. Pigs are detestable to Jews. The are forbidden to eat pork. Unfortunately, some racism still exists today.
Each day, we see some improvement to our work, but the cemetery is so large, it will take a lot of time to get it completely restored. The work has been difficult… While I consider myself to be pretty fit, even I’m relegated to rest as I feel the ache of so many forgotten muscles!
I feel honored to be doing this work, especially alongside Germans, Russians and the Macedonians who have sought to restore the memory of those lost so long ago. Once again, I’m humbled and in awe of the work God is doing throughout the world among His people, among the nations, and those that don’t acknowledge Him. He is working out His own plan and He will not abandon His people; they will never be forgotten from the Earth!
