In Janjelgava in Latvia, I found the grave of my Great-Grandfather, it was shattered into thousands of pieces, today it appears in its original state after a complete re-build and restoration to what it would have been when my Grandmother and her siblings would have had it constructed.

Author: Grant Arthur Gochin, Los Angeles, California, USA.

I document my family to the 1700’s in Papile, Akmene District in Lithuania. Jews have lived in Lithuania around 700 years, it is possible that my family has been Lithuanian since the 1300’s. A prerequisite for any Jewish settlement is that a cemetery be built to bury the dead, and so, after 700 years, Lithuania holds many hundreds of Jewish cemeteries, and in all likelihood, there are thousands that had the name Gochin that were buried in the vicinity of Papile.

A religious requirement and a community requirement of Jews is that they maintain and honor the cemeteries of their ancestors, and so, throughout the world where Jews live, one can see clean and neat cemeteries where descendants honor their ancestors. This is very similar to the Lithuanian tradition of All Souls Day where families visit and honor, and remember the graves of their ancestors.

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