Baron de Hirsch Cemeteries on rue de la Savane in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, has a section for Jewish veterans: the Veteran's Field of Remembrance (Map C19), with over 200 veterans and their spouses. In late 2016, I submitted updated burial data and photographs to JOWBR, the JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry for researchers around the world to access freely. The update included 237 burials, with 233 photos (mostly taken by Merle Kastner in 2007).
After an inspiring 2016 Remembrance Day ceremony at the cemetery, I was saddened by the state of many of the gravestones. Close to half were covered by mould and in need of cleaning. North-facing stones appear to be especially vulnerable, but the mould problems are unlike any that I have seen in surrounding sections. Note that because most of the photos for JOWBR were taken in 2007, they do not show the current situation.
I feel like the cemetery section does not honour our Jewish veterans as they deserve. I would like to see if the Jewish community of Montreal could support cleaning the stones, restoring dignity to the section. The Baron de Hirsch cemetery recommends an outside cleaning service for such needs, but leaves the responsibility to the families. based on the lack of mentioned of children on the gravestones, I think that many of these veterans have no family to care for their graves.
I estimate that 104 gravestones are badly in need of cleaning. I've spoken with Corey Fleischer, of Provincial Power Washing, who is well-known for his campaign to remove hate graffiti in Montreal, and is the recommended company for gravestone cleaning in Baron de Hirsch cemeteries. He has suggested that for a large project, he could give a discount of 25%. he also noted that if only the worst stones are cleaned, many of the ones that are left as-is will still be stained, and become the eyesore of the section. With that in mind, at $75 each, a cleaning 100 stones would cost $7500, 150 would cost $11,150, and 200 would cost $15,000.
How could this money be raised?
What kind of proposal would be most effective? I can take more photographs, gather more statistics, etc., but I'm not sure what would make the most compelling case. In the viewer that I use for creating submissions to JOWBR, you can see the photos, mostly from 2007, but there are also have current photos (red border) of groups of stones. I could take a complete set of photos of the current state so that the old and new could be viewer side-by-side. Or, one wide photo of the current state might be compelling. I'm open to suggestions.
