(JTA) — Students of a school in the northern Poland town of Zalewo began last week to clean up the local Jewish cemetery, accompanied by school deputy director Elzbieta Miedzinska and local priest Michal Bika, in an effort co-financed by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation. The gravestones were washed, rubbish was removed, and greenery was trimmed.
Before World War II, Zalewo was located in Germany. A dozen or so Jewish families lived there. During the war the town was almost completely destroyed. A Jewish cemetery with some tombstones survived. Local activists take care of the cemetery. This month they invited Krzysztof Bielawski of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews to conduct a course for students to learn to read Hebrew inscriptions on the gravestones.