Dear Tony,

Greetings from the USA. I find the Kremenets email group fascinating, and also very quick acting! What a great group.

I was able to find Kremenets so easily because I work for an organization with an office in Lviv, Ukraine. Lviv is the major city in Western Ukraine, and Kremenets is about two hours away. A good portion of the road was rough dirt, and poorly marked, but it was through scenic countryside, and my driver asked for directions frequently. He found an easier road back that was all paved.

I was very lucky to have a Ukrainian contact. Our country director (not Jewish, but English speaking) and the office driver took us there, and helped find the cemetery. It is not marked in any way, but the people in the marketplace all knew where it was. Still it took a few wrong turns up dirt roads to find it.

The cemetery is on a hill on the outskirts of the town, and you must walk on foot from the base of the hill. My colleague felt very safe in leaving the car in front of a farm house, but we locked it well.

The oldest stones are barely legible, and are closest to the bottom of the hill. The newer ones are higher up. The last is from 1914.

The most difficult thing for me was to decipher the dates. Most are written with Hebrew characters representing the (Hebrew) year, and I did not have a ready conversion table with me.

Also, all of the writing was in Hebrew or Yiddish, with only two stones (that I saw) using Russian. Therefore, my Ukrainian companions were not able to help look for names with me. (They gathered nuts for the two hours I was there).

I believe that you can rent a car with an English speaking driver at the major hotels in Lviv. (I stayed at the Grand Hotel on the main square; magnifique!). Kremenets itself seems to be a small city now, with hotels, but I do not know their quality.

Good luck! Please let me know if I can help you any more.

Best regards,
Beth