The European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative (ESJF) has been awarded a grant of €800,000 (£720,000) by the EU for a major project to map and survey at least 1,500 Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe.

The project, which is set to begin later this month, will begin its focus in five countries; Greece, Slovakia and Lithuania within the EU, and Ukraine and Moldova outside the bloc.

The ESJF said it would undertake the mapping process “using state of the art technology specially designed for the project… engineering drones surveying and photographing the sites from the air, following an in-depth historical research process of centuries–old records across many countries and languages.”

It also said it planned to form “strong collaborations with local and regional governments as well as the local population through awareness raising campaigns and educational programmes”, initiatives which it described as “mandatory for the prevention of desecration of the holy burial sites.”

Set up in 2015 with funding from the German government, the ESJF has built enclosures to protect over 120 Jewish burial sites in towns and villages across central and Eastern Europe.

Philip Carmel, chief executive of the ESJF, said that the project would “take cemetery protection and the preservation of the historical record into the 21st century with the use of the engineering drones and the real-time transmission of data… enabling all material to be fully and immediately accessible to the experts who will analyse it and utilise it for potential rescue and protection projects.

“We believe in complete public online access to this historical information as a key resource not only of Jewish heritage but of European heritage. The involvement of the European Union in this project is therefore a major factor in its recognition of the importance of maintaining this.”