ALTHOUGH it was in use from 1497 to 1943, the Jewish cemetery in Bitola, Macedonia’s second city, had long been forgotten. No longer. Not only is the site now being restored and a new memorial built, but on March 11th a couple of thousand people, including Macedonian and Israeli ministers, marched through town to pay homage to the Macedonian Jews who were rounded up exactly 75 years earlier and sent to the death camp at Treblinka. At the same time Israeli developers held a “hackathon”, dreaming up ideas for digital memorials with Macedonian fellow geeks. It is typical of the way Israelis are quietly discovering the western Balkans.
Bitola’s Jewish cemetery is on a steep hill, and over time its flat tombs became covered by soil. In the past few years 4,300 have been excavated; there could be as many as 10,000. Jews remember Bitola by its Ottoman name of Monastir, but most people in Bitola have forgotten that their down-at-heel town was once a...Continue reading
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