Carlos Casares is a little town with nothing special, just like others farmtowns near Mauricio, but going to the colony is special! I read a lot of books about the colonizers and can tell you about my experience of yesterday. They lived precariously in ALGARROBO that suffered a twister.The first person who died in this storm was a woman named SVERDLIK. I visited the first tombstone of a little kid of six years, who died in the same circumstances. The cemetery is in the middle of a big farm with cows and foxes. I saw in a old map there. Records exist of legal proceedings and land transfers. I was afraid that these old buildings would have been destroyed by the owner farm. There were many synagogues in the area. The majority were destroyed. I would like to make a foundation to save the Jewish history but in Argentina, we suffer from politics, conflicts of power and the worst corruption, making it difficult to do things including Jewish institutions. Luckily, there are persons like Susana Sigwald of CARIOLI, a non-Jewish woman. I took pictures. Daniel Teweles, MD. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. [18 January 2001]
UPDATE: The town is 312 km from Buenos Aires in the south central Buenos Aires province. Directions to the still active cemetery according to "Shalom Argentina" are as follows: Leave downtown Carlos Casares via San Martmn Avenue to the end. Continue along Provincial Route 40 (Loewenthal Road.) The cemetery is to the right at the end of the road. Open every morning except Saturday. The cemetery wall is close to Loewenthal Road. The cemetery probably dates from 1912 or 1913. The site has an office. Ash trees along a path were planted in the 1990s to replace old pines whose roots were damaging stones. Site has mausoleums, obelisks, and elaborately carved and inscribed stones in Spanish and Hebrew. Books: Marcus Alpersohn book translated by Eliahu Toker. Also "Resena historica de Colonia Mauricio (History of Colonia Mauricio) by Demetrio Aranovich. [December 2003]