The Together Plan and the Brest headstone project have featured in numerous news stories… find out more here!
City in horror: Belarus town shocked to discover buildings and pavements built of gravestones of Jews the Nazis tried to erase, Daily Mail, 31st October 2014
Residents of a Belarus town on the border with Poland made the macabre discovery that thousands of Jewish gravestones have been used to construct buildings, roads – and even garden paving. The headstones have been turning up in locations all over Brest over the past six years, with around 1,500 discovered so far. Hundreds were discovered in May during the construction of a supermarket, with headstones unearthed by diggers. Read more.
Belarus town built of hundreds of recycled Jewish gravestones, Times of Israel, 2nd November 2014
A small town in Belarus has discovered hundreds of old Jewish gravestones lining the very foundations of its buildings and streets, Vice Magazine reported over the weekend. Recent demolition work to make way for a new supermarket in the town of Brest, near the Polish border, revealed over 450 gravestones inside the foundations of homes, the report said. Around fifteen hundred gravestones have been found in the town’s houses, pavements, roads and gardens over the past six years, with more being discovered every day. The chilling phenomenon is apparently the result of a Russian communist practice in the 1950s, that of recycling Jewish headstones from communities decimated by the Nazis for construction materials. Read more.
Thousands of Jewish headstones have been used to build houses, roads and even a supermarket in the city of Brest in Belarus, and a British charity is trying to preserve them as a memorial. The headstones have apparently been turning up in the city, close to the Polish border, for the past six years. Hundreds were uncovered by excavators in May during the construction of a supermarket in the city, the Daily Mail reported Friday. Read more.
Broken tombstone tribute to lost Jews, The Times, 5th April 2021
Read more.
Memorial from broken headstones to mark desecrated Jewish cemetery in Belarus, CNN, 22nd September 2023
When a large Jewish cemetery was paved over last century to create a sports ground in Belarus, the headstones were used to make roads and buildings. Decades later, the desecrated stone slabs began to emerge during renovation works. Now, thanks to the hard work of a charity based in Belarus and the United Kingdom, the headstones will be given the respect they deserve as part of a new memorial on the site. The haunting structure will be erected at the site of the former cemetery in Brest, crafted from broken bits of headstones that have resurfaced over the past two decades in the city and the surrounding area. Read more.
Campaign launched to honour memories of 20,000 Holocaust victims in Belarus, Jewish News, 22nd September 2023
A UK-based charity dedicated to revitalising Jewish communities and preserving their heritage has launched a campaign for a memorial to Holocaust victims from Belarus. The Together Plan (TTP) is championing fundraising efforts to rediscover, preserve and commemorate more than 1200 remnants of headstones that once stood in the now destroyed Jewish cemetery in Brest, also known as Brest-Litovsk (Belarus). For the past two decades, the Jewish community in Brest has tirelessly gathered salvaged headstones that once stood in the cemetery that were found scattered throughout the region. It’s taken two decades to discover them all and bring them together in the form of an historic memorial, designed by American artist Brad J. Goldberg. Read more.
A Jewish cemetery in Belarus was destroyed by Nazis. Now its headstones are being made into a memorial, JTA, 28th September 2023
Earlier this year, the local Jewish community of Brest, Belarus received a call from a young couple who had just purchased a fixer-upper house and needed some help with a difficult situation: Their basement was built from old Jewish gravestones. For nearly two decades, the Jewish community — and in recent years, the nonprofit The Together Plan and its American arm, the Jewish Tapestry Project, founded to aid Belarusian Jewry — have been receiving such calls from residents of Brest who have collectively discovered thousands of Jewish headstones in their city’s construction. All of the headstones come from a historic cemetery that was destroyed during and after the Holocaust. Read more.
A Jewish cemetery in Belarus was destroyed by Nazis. Now its headstones are being made into a memorial, Forward, 28th September 2023
Earlier this year, a British Jewish nonprofit received a call from a young couple in the city of Brest, Belarus, who had just purchased a fixer-upper house and needed some help with a difficult situation: Their basement was built from old Jewish gravestones. Jewish groups — including the nonprofit The Together Plan and its American arm, the Jewish Tapestry Project, founded to aid Belarusian Jewry — have been receiving such calls for nearly two decades from residents of Brest who have collectively discovered thousands of Jewish headstones in their city’s construction. All of the headstones come from a historic cemetery that was destroyed during and after the Holocaust. Read more.
1,250 Jewish gravestones in Belarus returned to their original sites after 80 years, Jewish News, 24th April 2025
More than 1200 remnant gravestones from the destroyed Jewish cemetery in Brest-Litovsk (Belarus) are finally being returned to their rightful place today. After decades in storage, the sacred stones will become the centre-piece of a powerful new memorial, as reported by Jewish News, now under construction on the original cemetery territory. Read more
‘Historical justice done’ as Belarus cemetery memorial officially opened, Jewish News, 29th July 2025
More than a thousand Jewish gravestones were finally brought together and officially recognised at the emotional opening of a memorial at the former Brest-Litovsk Jewish Cemetery in Brest, Belarus. The event on Monday 28th July was the final step in honouring a Jewish community devastated by the Nazis, and the culmination of 12 years of unrelenting work and collaboration by The Together Plan, its US-based partner Jewish Tapestry Project, and the Jewish Religious Union of Belarus. Read more.
Memory Embrace: A Monumental Act of Remembrance and Justice in Brest, Jewish Journal, 1st August 2025
It is the culmination of a two-decade effort to restore dignity to a sacred site that was destroyed by the Nazis and paved over by the Soviets. The monument, built from recovered headstones, now stands as a public act of remembrance and reclamation. When Stephen Grynberg first stepped onto the grounds of Brest’s old locomotive football stadium in 1997, he wasn’t expecting to find fragments of his family’s past buried beneath the turf. The stadium sat atop what had once been the Jewish cemetery of Brest—his father’s hometown, a center of Jewish life before the Holocaust. Read more.
