In the city of Khmelnytskyi, there are up to a dozen monuments of Jewish culture, which are cared for by the Khmelnytskyi Charitable Foundation "Hesed Besht". Despite the favorable situation in the city and the region in terms of tolerance, one still has to think about the preservation of these objects constantly. Ironically, the most unpleasant surprises occur at the most inopportune time.
On Tuesday, September 16, the Khmelnytsky Charitable Foundation "Hesed Besht" celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the organization's foundation. It was a city-wide event at the Regional Music and Drama Theater. Representatives of the authorities, led by the governor and mayor of the city of Khmelnytsky, representatives of many national associations and public organizations, came here. Poignant words about friendship, tolerance and mutual understanding sounded from the stage.
And by morning, it became known about another "gift" from our organization and the entire Jewish community. The gates of the Proskuriv Ghetto Memorial, where 8,200 innocent victims are buried, were broken.
On the morning of September 17, Information Manager Vyacheslav Nagnybida arrived at the Memorial to photograph the event. One of the two sections of the gate had been hanging helplessly on two of the four screws that were screwed into the monolithic concrete arch. It took a lot of effort to pull the gate out of the concrete, but someone did manage to do so. A garbage bag with bottles of alcoholic beverages of various strengths was also found on the memorial grounds.
At first glance, it looked like a typical hooligan prank: apart from the facts noted, no new acts of vandalism were found. But subsequent events shed a lot of light on the events at the monument.
A black expensive foreign car was parked near the arch. A middle-aged woman, who wished to remain anonymous, was sitting in it. A conversation began between her and the manager, during which the woman represented the position of some residents of nearby private houses. By the way, in this part of the suburb, land plots are distributed among wealthy citizens. As it turned out, things at the memorial are going worse than the Foundation thinks. The proximity of the recreation area, which is a continuation of the Dendropark, causes frequent visits of drunken vacationers to the memorial site. They bring garbage, bottles and other holiday attributes with them, which they leave right there. But residents of the private sector are cleaning up the territory on their own, since their civic position and high moral qualities do not allow them to stay away from these problems.
During the conversation, the woman did indeed take the bag of bottles she found that morning into the trunk of her car. According to her words and observations, it was clear that the number of unidentified volunteers from local residents reached 5-6 people.
This conversation was a real surprise for the Hesed Besht Foundation employee, and a very pleasant one at that. The woman also explained that the gate had been broken from Saturday to Sunday (September 13 to 14), which breaks the possible connection between hooliganism and the celebration of the Foundation's anniversary. She also spoke about wanting to inform someone about the broken gate, but did not know where to turn. Now the volunteers have a number to contact the Hesed Besht Foundation office.
The unpleasant fact of vandalism unexpectedly presented the Foundation's employees with an unexpected "gift": it turns out that there are people who independently deal with the issues of caring for the Jewish monument. This fact has already been submitted for discussion by the organization's board, and now the employees are considering a strategy for cooperation with these people. After all, good cannot go unnoticed. Especially when it comes from a caring heart. As for the gate, it took a little cement and 15 minutes of time to repair it.
