Vladimir Prikupets of San Francisco called j. this week, distraught: A monument to Holocaust victims from the Ukrainian city of Odessa was missing from Eternal Home Cemetery in Colma, and he had no idea where it was.
Prikupets, an Odessa native who moved to San Francisco some 40 years ago, was part of a group of former Odessa Jews in the Bay Area who raised money to install the monument in 2007 to commemorate their friends and family members murdered during the Nazi onslaught.
“Someone came in the middle of the night and took it away,” he said. “More than 50 people have called me. They have no idea where it went.”
Turns out that “someone” was Tom Halloran and his team from Sinai Memorial Chapel, and they did their work at 10 in the morning, not the middle of the night.
“The monument is being cleaned and restored, and will be relocated to a more prominent and accessible place in the cemetery,” explained Sinai’s executive director, Sam Salkin. The 6-foot monument originally stood on a kind of pedestal, he said, and as the community aged, it became more difficult for them to climb up to see it.
“Accessibility is of primary concern as the people with a connection to the monument get older,” he said.
Plans are to install benches around the relocated monument so visitors can sit in comfort, he said. Work should be completed in two months, and Sinai is picking up the tab.
Prikupets was overjoyed to hear the news. “Thank goodness,” he exclaimed. “Everyone was so worried.” — sue fishkoff