About the Project

Recording Cultural Genocide and Killing Sites in Jewish Cemeteries was a three-year research project, funded by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

The project was a collaboration between Staffordshire University, The Matzevah Foundation and Fundacja Zapomniane. Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls led the project, which started in 2016.

This project aimed to raise awareness of the causes and consequences of cultural genocide and mass killings (using Jewish cemeteries desecrated by the Nazis as a pilot case study), directly tackling racism, xenophobia and hostility in the present.

This was achieved by:

(1) Conducting new research into relationships between the destruction of property by Nazis and their collaborators, and the use of religious spaces as killing sites;

(2) Undertaking a series of “social action projects” at selected Jewish cemeteries where cultural genocide and mass killings occurred in the past, and where neglect and vandalism is occurring presently.

(3) Disseminating the results of the research and fieldwork via various media.