“The Old Cemetery” is a section from a chapter titled “The Eishishok Surroundings” from the Yizkor book of Eišiškes, Lithuania. It was among the places that attracted youths of the area with their “atmosphere of myth and mystery.”
Overgrown with low wild bushes and with most of the tombstones deeply sunken in the ground, the cemetery had not been used for over 200 years after it had become too small to absorb all the village dead. It became surrounded by fields of gentiles who began annexing the land and ploughing it, despite pleas not to desecrate the memories of the righteous buried there for centuries.
One hot summer Sabbath, a group of youths — hearts thumping with fear — decided to risk the trip through hostile gentile territory to see the old cemetery with their own eyes. An “expert” among them pointed to places where the peasants had tried to plow the sacred ground.
And that recalled a legend about the miracle that put an end to the cemetery’s desecration.
