Around 40 people gathered at United Jewish Cemetery in Montgomery on a sunny and cool afternoon on May 3 to honor local Holocaust survivors.
There are over 100 survivors buried in Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati plots throughout the city. JCGC invited volunteers to place markers at their graves, honoring their memory and the lives they rebuilt here.
Participants, many of them the descendants of survivors, were given a map of the cemetery and a bag containing the plaques. JCGC staff and board trustees helped participants locate each grave.
Sandy Levine came to mark the graves of her parents, both survivors, and to honor others who no longer have family to do it for them.
“I came today to honor my parents, and anybody else who didn’t have any family or anyone to do this for them,” she said. “I ended up with a bunch of people who were friends of my parents, and I knew them.”
Standing at the graves, she described the experience as both painful and deeply meaningful.
“It’s always sad when I come, but also, you know, grateful,” she said. “Sad and grateful because they survived and they lived.”
The project began in 2020 at the JCGC board committee, which included local survivor Henry Fenichel, Ray Warren, Sandy Kaltman, and Gail Zigler.
Not everyone who came had a personal connection to a survivor. Avi Dave, who has family buried at the cemetery but no Holocaust survivors among them, said he felt compelled to participate for those who had no one left to remember them.
“In the preamble to the Mi Shebeirach and the Kaddish, we pray for those who have no one to pray for them,” he said. “Doing this service for those who have no one to do it for them was my motivating factor.”
After finishing marking the graves of survivors at the Montgomery cemetery, people gathered at the entrance to say Kaddish for the individuals whose graves they had spent the afternoon honoring.
“As a strong believer in Holocaust memory and education, it’s an important task to do, and someone’s got to do it,” said Dave. “That kind of thing falls on the present generation.”
