Students restore cemetery in Belarus -- again

Courtney Stefaniak's first trip abroad was to Belarus, a country that recently severed diplomatic ties with the United States.

However, she visited not to restore the diplomatic breach, but to help restore a Jewish cemetery.

Courtney is a junior majoring in political science at Siena College in Loudonville. She was one of 15 Siena students and professors who traveled to the former Soviet Bloc country this summer to work on the neglected burial ground.

This was the second Jewish cemetery restored by Siena students; the first trip occurred in 2006.

A parishioner of Our Lady of the Assumption in Rotterdam, she said the trip combined two of her interests: "I've always been interested in the Holocaust and I'm service oriented."

Help and learn

The trip allowed her to learn about the lasting effects of the Holocaust.

Before the Nazis killed off most Jews in Europe, the population of Belarus was 30 to 50 percent Jewish. Currently less than one percent of the population of Belarus is Jewish.

The cemetery that the Siena students restored was in Rubezhevichi, Belarus. One local woman thanked Courtney for her work on the cemetery, saying that the villagers of Rubezhevichi should have restored it. Now that it has been restored, the villager promised Courtney that it would be taken care of.

According to Dean Ralph Blasting of Siena, the goals of the trip were to develop intercultural connections and restore a piece of history. It was the second outing for Siena in a project conceived by a Latham orthodontist, Michael Lozman, who found Jewish cemeteries in disarray while researching his family's history in Belarus.

Lessons first

In order to participate in the trip, the students took a seminar taught by Dr. Blasting and Diane Strock-Lynskey, a Siena professor of social work and expert in restorative justice. The seminar included lessons in the history of Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, cultural trauma, healing and restorative justice.

"It's valuable for our students to learn in a preliminary way about the Jewish faith and the Holocaust," said Dean Blasting. "It also contributes to the Franciscan tradition of good works toward minorities. There are no Jews left to maintain the Jewish cemeteries."

The project was labor intensive. The team from Siena restored 300 overturned gravestones, rebuilt a stone wall, cut down trees, raked and weeded.

"We were so exhausted and so sore," Courtney said. "The most rewarding thing was finishing it. To complete the process was awesome."

Alternative diplomacy

Dr. Blasting said relations between the U.S. and Belarus have soured since the college's 2006 trip to Belarus: "In March, the two countries broke off diplomatic relations," he said. "We were walking into an unknown situation."

Although the two nations' relationships are strained, villagers were friendly to the Siena group. "We found a very welcoming attitude from the Belarusians," Dr. Blasting said.

The Siena students stayed with host families in Rubezhevichi. None of the host families spoke English and only one of the Siena students spoke Russian, Dr. Blasting said. While there were translators present during the work at the cemetery, the students had to find ways to communicate with the host families during the evenings.

Courtney said living with her host family helped her to learn about Belarusian culture and life.

"The hardest part of the trip was trying to understand," she said. "I didn't understand their lifestyle."

She was surprised to find that, although the host family liked her and the other Siena students, they weren't fond of America.

"They were thrilled to have us," Courtney said. "They just didn't want to be us and they didn't want to go to America."

In addition to the work in Rubezhevichi, the students also went to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.

"Auschwitz looked like a college campus," Courtney said. "It was hard to believe that something so awful happened where there was green grass and trees growing. But you can feel what happened there."

(Although college students have been known to eat quirky diets, Courtney had a difficult time adjusting to the menu in Belarus. "For breakfast we had hotdogs and spaghetti," she said. "They eat a lot of salami, bread and butter and boiled meat."  She also found it interesting that there was not a large table for the family to eat at. Her host family consisted of a mother and father, two daughters and a son, and a set of grandparents. The layout of the house was different from what Courtney is used to.
"The bathtub and sink were in one room," she said. "The toilet was in a closet.") (MM)

(08/21/08)