In 1961, the City Council of Bitola decided to remodel the entire complex and to create a park that would carry the memories of the former Jewish community and to put this memorial park under government protection. A civil campaign to restore the cemetery and create a Holocaust memorial complex there began in 1997 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of its foundation. Considerable work was carried out, including the restoration of the monumental entrance gate, declared a national historic-cultural monument. It has a central Gothic arch flanked by two Gothic-arched windows and features a facade whose upper part is decoratively ribbed.[1] This initiative lost its momentum in 2005 when work began on the construction of the Memorial Center in Skopje, but it regained it this summer when the Memorandum for cooperation 2015 between Israel and Bitola/Monastir was signed. I