2.2.2004 18:12 MSK
Jakob Gutman tries to stop destruction of Jewish religious sites
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| Synagogue in Mogilev region |
On 21 January, the president of the American-based World Association of Belarus Jews (WABJ), Jakob Gutman, announced his commencement of a hunger strike in protest at the “politics of state anti-Semitism in Belarus”.
7 days before, Gutman undertook his first attempt at attracting the attention of the country’s leadership: this in connection with the destruction of synagogues in Minsk; graveyards in Mozir, Rogachev and Grodno; and various memorials to victims of the holocaust. The action was concluded with his detention and an official reprimand from the Lenin court in Minsk. From 14 January, Gutman went on hunger strike at home.
A week of hunger strike having provoked no reaction from the Belarus authorities, Gutman went to the presidential administration in Minsk on 21 January to remind the authorities of the “personal responsibility of (Belarus president) Alexander Lukashenko in the destruction of Jewish religious sites”. This he had written on his own back. After nine minutes, Gutman was taken away to the militia station in the Lenin district of Minsk. There he started to refuse water too. On the same day he was taken to hospital, apparently suffering from a heart attack.
“I do not want war. In all the twelve years I have lived in the USA, I have enjoyed peace and security for my family. But we all carry a responsibility for the protection of Jewish religious sites: synagogues, cemeteries, and memorials to the victims of the holocaust. Slobodan Milosevic, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are being brought to book by the international tribunal in The Hague for, amongst other things, the destruction of holy sites. No Egyptian Phaeroes, nor Spanish Inquisitors, nor German Nazis nor Afghan Taliban destroyed Jewish cemeteries”, Jakob Gutman said.
In Minsk, construction is going forward at full speed on the site of a synagogue from the year 1570, situated on Nemiga street. In Mozir, two Jewish cemeteries are being excavated. On one the foundations for cottages are appearing, while on the other a gas mains is being laid.
“I graduated from an institute specialising in industrial power systems, and am thus in a position to say that a gas mains could have been laid on the other side of the street. I myself was a witness to the excavators digging out bones and their being removed to an unknown destination. I wrote to the gas authorities three times saying it was not on to have gas being routed through the bones of our ancestors, but have up to now received no reply”, Jakob Gutman added regretfully.
Seeing the hopelessness of approaching the authorities and protesting, Jakob Gutman abandoned his hunger strike on 23 January. He intends to return to the USA, where he has lived for the past twelve years.
Juras DUBINA
