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JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE
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UKRAINE NEWS PAGE
Holocaust Memorial Dedicated in Zolochiv (Zloczow [Zloczów])
Grant for restoration of historic cemetery
On 23 July, 2006 Jewish and community leaders dedicated memorials to the 14,000 Jews of Zolochiv (Zloczów), Ukraine who perished during the Holocaust. These include a monument in Zolochiv cemetery and a plaque on Zolochiv castle, where 2,000 Jews were killed. A memorial plaque commemorating those killed by the NKVD (the Soviet secret police) prior to the Nazi invasion was also unveiled.
Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber (July 2006)
Among those attending the event were the Chief Rabbi of the Ukraine, Azriel Chaikin; three chief regional rabbis; regional and city representatives; and Roald Hoffmann, a Zolochiv Holocaust survivor and winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Prof. Hoffmann has recounted his experience as a child survivor of the Holocaust in Zolochiv, and his feelings on revisiting his native town, in the International Herald Tribune.
The Jewish presence in Zolochiv dates back to 1565, becoming firmly established in the early 17th century. Zolochiv's Jews were an accepted part of life before the Second World War. Jews were allowed to live throughout the city and were instrumental in its political, economic, and social development. Jews participated in many professions and trades and established schools, orphanages, and an elderly home. Notable Jewish natives of the town include the Hasidic rabbi, Yekhiel Mekhl, the Maggid of Zloczów (c. 1731-1786); the Yiddish poet, Moshe Leib Halpern (1886-1932); and the photographer Weegee (born Arthur Fellig) 1899-1968.
In 1939, hundreds of refugees from Western Poland fled to Zolochiv to escape the Germans. The Jewish community welcomed them. After heavily bombing the town, German forces occupied Zolochiv on 2 July, 1941. By 4 July local farmers had initiated a pogrom, killing 3,000-4,000 people in just three days, 2,000 of whom were killed in front of the castle. That month German forces established the Judenrat, a board of prominent Jews providing liaison between the Jewish community and German forces. The Judenrat was forced to assist in evacuating Zolochiv Jews. In August, 2,700 Jews were herded into cattle cars and sent to the death camp of Belzec. A second mass expulsion in November led to the deaths of 2,500 more. In December the Germans established a ghetto, housing roughly 7-9,000 Jews. By April of 1943 its inhabitants had all been taken outside the city, shot, and buried in mass graves - many of them still alive. Roughly 6,000 were killed. Many Jews remained in hiding, but they were hunted down by German forces and also killed. The Red Army liberated Zolochiv on 18 July 1944. Few survivors remained: most fled immediately.
For more information, see:
Hoffmann, Roald. "Remembering, returning, forgiving", International Herald Tribune, 24 August, 2006:
www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/24/opinion/edhoffman.php
www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/pinkas_poland/pol2_00217.html
(29 August 2006)
A United States-based genealogy group has received a UKP10,000 (14,800 Euro) grant to begin restoration of the historic Jewish cemetery in Kremenets, Ukraine. The funds, from a London-based charity, were awarded to the United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, which is overseeing the project for the Kremenets Jewish Cemeteries Restoration and Documentation Project (KJCP). The Commission has previously organised cemetery preservation work at other sites in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Kremenets Jewish Cemetery
(Images courtesy of Ron Doctor)
The KJCP is an activity of the Kremenets Shtetl Co-op, part of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland (JRI-Poland). The aim of the group is to memorialize and document Jewish life in Kremenets. The Co-op is currently working on vital translations and indexing of records and yizkor (memorial) books; it will now also document and preserve the Kremenets cemetery. The group hopes to expand the project to nearby cemeteries in the Kremenets Rayon (District), particularly the two Vishnevets cemeteries.
Ron Doctor of Portland, Oregon, who is Co-coordinator of Kremenets Shtetl Co-op, explains that the Kremenets Cemetery contains between 3,200 and 5,000 matzevot (gravestones), most of which still are readable. According to the Centre for Jewish Art at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, about 120 of these date to the 16th and 17th centuries. The first phase of a matzevot photography project, obtaining 'before' photos, has already been completed. A Kremenets volunteer has photographed all 3,231 upright matzevot in the Cemetery. The 'Old' Vishnevets Jewish Cemetery has more than 100 matzevot visible, of which 50 readable stones have been photographed; the 'new' Vishnevets Jewish Cemetery has about 700, of which 645 readable stones have been photographed.
The work funded includes clearing the hillside site of excess vegetation and accumulated debris, the preparation of a conservation plan, and the return to the cemetery of gravestones from other sites in the town, where they were taken for use as paving stones, etc. Work will be carried out in 2006 and 2007; in the meantime the KJCP seek funding for subsequent phases of work, such as the repair of roads, walls and gravestones, and the erection of memorial markers on the sites of mass graves.
For more information on Kremenets, the KJCP and the cemetery project see:
www.jewishgen.org/Ukraine/KremenetsNewsletters.htm
or contact rondoctor@earthlink.net.
See also:
www.heritageabroad.gov
(26 August 2006)
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