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Poland's Destroyed Jewish Graveyards
(Times of Israel) Matt Lebovic - In The Annihilation of Jewish Cemeteries, Polish author Krzysztof Bielawski says Polish citizens likely did more damage to Jewish burial grounds after World War II than did the country's German occupiers. "Even if a cemetery was devastated by the Nazis during the war, it was also destroyed by the local population. Giant destruction was done by the post-war Polish state," Bielawski told the Times of Israel. Bielawski, who is not Jewish, created a website about Jewish cemeteries in Poland, pursued Jewish studies at the graduate level, and joined the staff of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in 2009. Bielawski documented hundreds of examples of destruction among Poland's 1,200 Jewish cemeteries. During the 1960s, burial grounds disappeared to make way for schools, malls, sports arenas, and parks.