If you search the internet for such memorials, nearly every result will direct you toward West Hartford. Blink, and you’ll miss the few mentions of monuments in Hartford proper.

Maybe these memorials are too modest to be deemed worthy of attention, or perhaps they are forgotten because they are located within Hartford’s cemeteries — not hidden, by any means, but not noticeable while driving by at 50 MPH.

Above: The Wolkowysker Society dedicated this memorial in 1963. The region named on the stone is in modern day Belarus.

Above: Dedicated in 1956. Ludmir was a shtetl in Poland, and those with ancestry in that region were invited to the monument’s unveiling.

The First Ludmir Benevolent Association was part social club, part mutual aid society. The women’s branch would get together to play cards, donating the proceeds to orphans in Israel.

Above: Congregation Tikvoh Chodoshoh (“New Hope”) dedicated this memorial in 1947. The unveiling was done by a 7-year old girl, an orphan from Belgium.

This congregation officially began in 1942 when refugee families from Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany decided to form their own group — they did not speak enough English to feel comfortable at other congregations, not to mention they were holding on to traditions from their countries of origin. As refugees, many were priced out from the established High Holiday services and cemeteries.

By 1945, they began holding Holocaust memorial services. When this memorial was erected, it was described in the papers as the first of its kind in the United States. For years, there would be an annual remembrance ceremony that included the recitation of Kaddish.

It was not until 1955 that the congregation had plans drawn up for construction of its own synagogue.

All three of these memorials can be found in the cluster of cemeteries on and near Tower Avenue.