Gravestones Vandalized at Jewish Cemetery in Dundalk

In July of 2021, more than a dozen gravestones were vandalized at the German Hill Road Jewish Cemeteries in Dundalk. (File photos)

On the Fourth of July this year, while most Baltimoreans were barbecuing with their families, vacationing at the beach or watching fireworks, Deborah R. Weiner, Eric L. Goldstein and Dianne Weiner Feldman were touring the German Hill Road Jewish Cemeteries in Dundalk.

When the trio approached the entranceway, they were taken aback when they saw swastikas spray-painted on more than a dozen gravestones. One headstone was also defaced with the word Holdomir, which could possibly be a reference to the Holodomor, a man-made famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s and is widely believed to have been caused by the government of the late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. (Some far-right Ukrainian activists blame Jews for the rise of communism and the former Soviet Union.)

vandalized graves
The Jewish Cemetery Association of Greater Baltimore filed a report about the cemetery vandalism with the Baltimore Police Department. (Photo by Eric L. Goldstein)

“It’s something I’ve never seen in all my years of cemetery-going,” said Weiner, a local Jewish historian and co-author with Goldstein of “On Middle Ground: A History of the Jews of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press). “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s crazy!’ It was shocking at first but given the climate that we’ve been in for the last few years, it’s not really surprising.

“People seem to feel more license to do things like that now,” she said. “I don’t think it would have happened five or six years ago. It’s a shame that people have to go around cleaning up cemeteries.”

Located at 6820 German Hill Rd., the cluster of cemeteries are the final resting places for members of Adath Israel Anshe Sfard, Arugat Habosem Congregation, the Hebrew Orthodox Free Burial Society, Knesseth Israel Anshe Kolk Wolyn Kolker, Ohr Knesseth Israel Anshe Sfard, the Posvohler Friendly Society, Shomrei Shabbos, Tzemach Tzedek, Workmen’s Circle and Zichron Abraham Nachman. (The congregational cemetery of Beth Isaac Adath Israel is also located nearby on German Hill Road.)

In recent months, there has been a wave of anti-Semitic incidents around the world, including cemetery desecrations in New York, St. Louis and Philadelphia as well as in Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Northern Ireland and Denmark.

“Hearing the news of swastikas being drawn on cemetery headstones was both despicable and repulsive,” Marc B. Terrill, president of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore, said in a statement about the German Hill Road cemetery case. “Fortunately, we have the infrastructure within the Jewish Cemetery Association, an agency of The Associated, to respond quickly and provide dignity for the memory of our loved ones. This situation also underscores our fight against hate and antisemitism remains critical. There is much work to be done and our network of Agencies are actively engaged in that fight.”

A history professor at Emory University, Goldstein photographed the defaced gravestones at the German Hill Road cemetery. “I’ve visited Jewish cemeteries in the Baltimore area to visit family members and also to do historical research, and I’ve never experienced anything like that,” he said. “I think it’s a struggle to maintain these places because they’re not actively visited by many people. There’s a lot of deterioration and there’s not someone there to watch it all the time. … [The Jewish Cemetery Association of Greater Baltimore] make a valiant effort to take responsibility for these cemeteries, but it’s a struggle to maintain them.”

Feldman, co-author of “The Tents of Baltimore: Ohelim in the Jewish Cemeteries” (Heritage Books Inc.), immediately contacted Steven Venick, board president of the Jewish Cemetery Association of Greater Baltimore.  

Venick, who is president of Pikesville’s Fram Monument Co., said he was unaware of the vandalism until contacted by Feldman, a volunteer for the the Find a Grave website.

“First thing Monday morning, I had one of our caretakers who looks after this cemetery investigate and discovered there were 13 monuments spray-painted with swastikas. He immediately had them cleaned, and a few hours later all the graffiti was removed,” said Venick, who filed a report about the incident with the Baltimore Police Department.

Dr. Deborah R. Weiner
Dr. Deborah R. Weiner: “It’s something I’ve never seen in all my years of cemetery-going, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s crazy!’” (File photo)

“We have also locked the gates temporarily to be cautious for any future acts,” he said, “and are also exploring an on-demand locking system for the gates that would allow only permitted people inside the cemetery grounds. Our JCA board has been advised to be on heightened alert for any suspicious activity within their own cemetery.” 

Venick said he was extremely “disheartened” when learning of the vandalism. Although he recalls “occasional vandalism” at area cemeteries in the past, he said he has never seen anti-Semitic graffiti of this nature at a graveyard.

“I have been looking after cemeteries for nearly 22 years — between being president of both the United Hebrew Cemetery Corporation of Rosedale and the Jewish Cemetery Association of Greater Baltimore — and do not recall any acts like this,” said Venick. “I have no idea who would have done something like this and truly hope this is an isolated incident. 

“Cemeteries are sacred places where our loved ones are buried, and our goal is always to have them maintained to the best of our ability.”

Howard Libit, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, said his agency’s director of security, Keith Tiedemann, will be following up with law enforcement agencies on the case. Libit said the BJC will send a copy of the police report to the Anti-Defamation League, and the police will likely send a report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Libit said he was uncertain if the cemetery desecration was the work of random vandals or connected to a particular neo-Nazi or white supremacist group, but he noted that swastikas were also discovered a couple of weeks ago painted on lamp posts in Fells Point. (Kimberlee Swift and Luann Carra, residents of the East Baltimore community, banded together with Baltimore City Councilman Zeke Cohen, D-1st District, and painted rainbow hearts over the swastikas. A suspect, Nikolaos Diakomanolis, 26, was charged June 24 with destruction of property.)

“Whatever it is, it’s an act of anti-Semitism,” he said of the German Hill Road cemetery defacement. “It’s a despicable act of hate that cannot be tolerated. We have to all stand together against hate. We have a community that generally respects each other, and fortunately this kind of thing is rare. Hopefully, we’ll continue to educate people. This is just not acceptable.”

Said Cohen: “To desecrate Jewish gravestones with swastikas is a craven, hateful crime. Today, we stand united with Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faith and community leaders in rejecting antisemitism, racism, and every other form of bigotry. Baltimore will not be divided.”

Baltimore Police are searching for leads in the case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Baltimore Police Department at 410-396-2411.

Editor-in-Chief Alan Feiler contributed to this report.

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