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By Donald H. Harrison
 SAN DIEGO—Many people have heard it on the news: a class action suit has been filed in Los Angeles against the owners of Eden Memorial Cemetery in Mission Hills, California, the Interstate 405 community at the top of the San Fernando Valley. Eden Memorial is a Jewish cemetery, with, I'm told, approximately 40,000 internments.
Two of the people buried there are my parents, Alice and Marty. Another is my stepfather, Harry, who married my mother after she became a widow, brightening her last years.
When I heard the news, I resolved not to jump to any conclusions and to try to keep my emotions in check. I decided that I would use my skills as a reporter to try to assess what is going on, and then decide if I wanted to participate in the class action suit.
I called the offices of Michael Avenatti, the attorney who filed the suit, and I also called Eden Memorial Cemetery. In each instance I told the person answering the phone that I was inquiring about the situation in a dual capacity—as the son of two of the people buried there, and as the editor of San Diego Jewish World.
Avenatti called me back, but thus far Eden Memorial Cemetery has not. The lady on the cemetery’s switchboard told me that they have been swamped with so many calls since the story hit the news that they had to establish a first-come, first-served procedure: She would take my name and someone would call me back when they reached my name on the list. I asked if they are referring media representatives to any spokesperson. “No,” she replied. “All we can do is take names and put them on the list.”
Whether a cemetery representative will call me back, I don’t know.
So for the moment, the only information I have to go on is what I was told by Avenatti and what appears in the complaint filed by his firm in the civil suit. Thus far, Eden Memorial has not filed a response.
Avenatti said that in order to make more room for burials,
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Eden Memorial has been secretly rearranging the graves, digging underground to push caskets in one direction or another so as to make more room in between the plots for future burials. The complaint alleges that in the process, caskets have been destroyed, their contents spilled, and skeletal remains have been dumped.
I don’t know if the allegations are true. And, even if they are true, I don’t know if the bodies of my family members were affected. But I can’t seem to shake the image of back hoes pulverizing the bones of my parents and those of Harry. It’s a horrifying image, and I want so desperately to be assured that none of it’s true—that my parents and Harry all continue to rest in peace.
But so far, no call from the cemetery. If you consider that Eden Memorial was opened in the 1950s and that the people buried then and since have had children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and possibly great-great-grandchildren and maybe even another generation, you can see how many descendants may have been distressed by the report and how many phone calls the cemetery is receiving.
So, I understand how difficult it may be for cemetery officials, and I am trying resolutely not to jump to conclusions about what happened.
I asked Avenatti how people can ever find out what happened to their family members buried there. He said there are techniques for determining whether caskets are in the places where they belong. There are pole samplings, even imaging techniques. At some point, he said, the court will permit more evidence to be gathered—and then a systematic survey might be undertaken.
Meanwhile, he said, his firm has collected the statements of people who worked as groundskeepers, evidence that he said points to a conscious effort by the cemetery to increase its profits by disrespecting the sanctity of graves.
Argggh. I really don’t know what to think.
But I am looking forward to the High Holy Days. Maybe in the reflection and introspection of these days, I and other descendants of those 40,000 souls shall find some respite from those horrible images.
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