VILNIUS, June 22, BNS–This week removal began of fragments of Jewish headstones used in the construction of an electric substation in Vilnius. The fragments will be removed to the Jewish cemetery on Olandų street to be used in a Jewish cemetery memorial to be erected there, the municipality informed BNS. “Currently work is underway to remove stones set in different walls,” Kęstutis Karosas, acting director of the city’s Heating and Water Department said. The plan is to remove all the stones by September 1.

The cost to the municipality is unknown so far. Karosas said payment will be made for work done. The electric substation on Olandų street was constructed during the Soviet period using headstones from the Jewish cemetery there. Jewish headstones, especially from the cemetery on Olandų street, were used all over Vilnius for construction during the Soviet era.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community told BNS the old Jewish cemetery on Olandų street in the Vilnius district of Užupis operated from 1828 to 1940 and about 70,000 Jews are buried there. The cemetery was destroyed between 1961 and 1963, with the mortal remains of some notable figures, writers and others removed to the new cemetery on Sudervės road. The headstones were used for stairs up Tauro kalnas, at Vingio park and at a hospital, and it was possible to find Hebrew and Yiddish inscriptions on stones at many other locations as well. In 1990 the staircase at Tauro kalnas and many other sites were disassembled, and in 1992 the architect Jaunutis Makariūnas made a monument from headstones in the Užupis district.