Warsaw Poland – Cemetery director Przemyslaw Isroel Szpilman walks among the moss-covered and crumbling gravestones of the Warsaw Jewish cemetery, painstakingly jotting details in his notebook.
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The Nazis burned the offices and files of the sprawling 19th century burial site in 1943 and Szpilman is taking on the monumental task of reconstructing the cemetery’s records of its estimated 250,000 graves.
«When I became director … many people from around the world would come every day and ask about the graves of their ancestors, said Szpilman, who has run the cemetery since 2002.
«Each time I had to explain why I cannot help them,» he said. «I decided that as a director I must help them, so I started to make records of the graves.
As of this week, Szpilman had completed some 60,000 records _ about the quarter-way mark after five years of work.
But for the past year he has had help: Four Jewish students supported by a Chicago philanthropist are assisting him with notes and pictures, and setting up a Web site.
If all goes well, he hopes to be done by 2012.[ap]
