Kever of Ostrovtzer Rebbe, Zy”a, Desecrated in Poland

Just days after an anti-Semitic attack on a shul in Gdansk, Poland, during Yom Kippur, the kever of the Ostrovtzer Rebbe, Harav Meir Yechiel Halshtock, zy”a, was found desecrated in Ostrowiec, south-central Poland.

“The hatred towards the Jews is increasing every day,” says the founder of an organization dedicated to preserving the Jewish heritage in Europe.

The kever of the Rebbe, which was recently established by his descendants and survivors of the city who survived the Holocaust, with the assistance of the Generations organization in Poland

The kever is located in a Jewish cemetery that has unfortunately become a park where local residents walk with their dogs every morning and evening, and often the dogs desecrate the Jewish kevarim.

Meir Bolka, the founder of the Generations organization, who visited the cemetery this week, noticed that the kever of the Rebbe, had been damaged by vandalism. The vandals also shattered the windows of the Ohel and smashed the walls. Bulka alerted local Police, who claim to patrol the place regularly.

The cemetery in the city of Ostrowiec is at the center of a legal hearing in a lawsuit filed by Bolka against the state, demanding that Poland take responsibility for the vandalism of the cemetery and no longer allow acts of vandalism.

“The Poles simply cannot understand that it is important for us to preserve our cemeteries. They respect Catholic cemeteries, but to them Jews have no value,” says Bolka.

“On the one hand, the authorities turn a blind eye to acts of vandalism against Jews, and on the other hand they rewrite stories of Holocaust heroes who were rejected by Yad Vashem because of many contradictions in the testimonies,” Bolka said.