September 9, 2021

Unknown criminals desecrated the old Jewish cemetery on the Radvilėnai highway in Kaunas, exhuming at least three graves in what might have been an attempt steal valuables from the dead.

The Kaunas municipal agency charged with maintaining cemeteries noticed the disturbed graves Thursday morning while clearing tree branches at the site.

The three graves well all adjacent to one another in the southern section of the cemetery near the fence. Maintenance personnel found several pits which seemed to be dug towards the upper body section of the corpses. The pits were about a half meter deep and were partially filled in.

Maintenance agency director Ričardas Čėsna confirmed staff discovered the evidence of disturbed graves and called police.

“It is likely the grave robbers visited very recently, there was sand freshly poured,” he said.

He said it seemed credible to him that the thieves were searching for valuables in the graves.

“We can only guess what they did find,” he commented.

Inspecting the cemetery after the discovery of recent disturbance, maintenance staff also discovered the thieves had attempted to disable the video surveillance system as well by pulling out wires. Police officers weren’t able to say whether video recordings would aid in the investigation.

Full story in Lithuanian here.