There used to be a debate about the delivery of history, which fell between those who went for the broad-brush approach and those who argued that to fully understand a moment in time the focus must be a study in depth.
Both have their merits.
Without the broad brush, a student or the general reader has no context in which to place an event and no reference point for what came before or afterwards.
But at the same time such an approach must deliver something which is light on detail and leaves you racing on, to clock another half century, without really getting to know the finer points of why an event happened and the implications of that event.
But there are some events that are so well known that the broad outline is already fixed fast and so it is with the Holocaust or Shoah, and instead it is the detail which requires digging deep.
All of which brings me to an important project being undertaken in Rohatyn which is a town in the Ukraine by the
Rohatyn Jewish Heritage which is “a volunteer-led program of heritage preservation and education, working to re-connect the history of Rohatyn’s now-lost Jewish community with the people and places of the modern town.
With the cooperation of current Rohatyn residents and volunteers from around the world, today the program focuses primarily on recovery of Jewish headstone fragments discovered in town and their return to the old Jewish cemetery”. *
I came across the organization on the recommendation of a friend and have been following their work with great interest.
A few weeks ago, they posted two articles describing their work on piecing together the timeline of the events surrounding the elimination of almost all the Jewish inhabitants of the town and on those non-Jewish members of the community who tried to protect the persecuted.
In the case of the timeline this was very important, “because of the near-complete destruction of Rohatyn’s 350-year Jewish community by the German military and their accomplices during the war, and the near-complete erasure of Jewish identity in the region by Soviet policies after the war, records and images of specific wartime events and people in Rohatyn are scarce”. **
This required researching “a variety of sources including several versions of the Rohatyn Yizkor (memory) book, testimonies and oral interviews (Jewish and Ukrainian), written memoirs of and personal correspondence with survivors of the Rohatyn ghetto, as well as general histories of the region and the period”. **
And as part of that research, has come an account of those who hid Jewish individuals and families from the Nazis. People like “Mikhailo and Lubomira Belegai, parents of a young daughter and living on a farm in Zhuriv, [who] sheltered three former neighbors, Eliezer Schreier and his young sons, …. for over a year, until the region was liberated. The Belegais provided food and shelter in their barn and other hiding places as needed to avoid detection by Germans and others”. ***
The work of the Rohatyn Jewish Heritage Program would be important at any time since the end of the last world war, but especially so today, when some would seek to deny the Holocaust occurred and when a significant group of people remain woefully ignorant of the event.
Added to which we are going through a period when anti-Semitism is again on the march, and small-minded nationalists are seeking to re-assert their beliefs, often by misrepresenting the activities of settled minority communities.
So, I suggest you follow the links to Rohatyn Jewish Heritage* and their Facebook page.****
And also their annual report for 2018.*****
Location; Rohatyn, Ukraine
Pictures; view toward Rohatyn town centre from the old Jewish cemetery, 2011, brush clearing at Rohatyn’s Old Jewish Cemetery, 2018, © Jay Osborn, courtesy of the Rohatyn Jewish Heritage, The Belegai family, and Fyodor Penderetskiy, who with his wife and son rescued more than 17 Jews in the forest near Bukachivtsi, from Yad Vashem******
*The Rohatyn Jewish Heritage http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/
** The Shoah in Rohatyn, http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/history/timeline-shoah/?fbclid=IwAR1d2zUDT41QqE3sBr4u-jZ0p61hsb8zOF6FlZGNJPuyMtU_Im6LvGnxnDs
***Rohatyn's Wartime Righteous Gentiles, http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/history/righteous-gentiles/?fbclid=IwAR22VkgpNCbw-9gi6uEkDI6g7RVRswjhhsiUuiQLTpiKRtk6a7PcyjBfOWU
**** Rohatyn Jewish Heritage
*****RJH Annual Report 2018, http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/2018/12/annual-report-2018/?fbclid=IwAR0-KTlTj-jqAeN33ssjVZNxt3saQI8JPYW4QFJazfcAXspjOTz1NtbPzpc
****** Yad Vashem, Israel’s official state memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, https://www.yadvashem.org/
 |
| Rohatyn from the old Jewish cemetery, 2011 |
Without the broad brush, a student or the general reader has no context in which to place an event and no reference point for what came before or afterwards.
But at the same time such an approach must deliver something which is light on detail and leaves you racing on, to clock another half century, without really getting to know the finer points of why an event happened and the implications of that event.
But there are some events that are so well known that the broad outline is already fixed fast and so it is with the Holocaust or Shoah, and instead it is the detail which requires digging deep.
 |
| Brush clearing at the old Jewish cemetery, 2018 |
Rohatyn Jewish Heritage which is “a volunteer-led program of heritage preservation and education, working to re-connect the history of Rohatyn’s now-lost Jewish community with the people and places of the modern town.
With the cooperation of current Rohatyn residents and volunteers from around the world, today the program focuses primarily on recovery of Jewish headstone fragments discovered in town and their return to the old Jewish cemetery”. *
I came across the organization on the recommendation of a friend and have been following their work with great interest.
 |
| The Belegai family, date unknown |
In the case of the timeline this was very important, “because of the near-complete destruction of Rohatyn’s 350-year Jewish community by the German military and their accomplices during the war, and the near-complete erasure of Jewish identity in the region by Soviet policies after the war, records and images of specific wartime events and people in Rohatyn are scarce”. **
This required researching “a variety of sources including several versions of the Rohatyn Yizkor (memory) book, testimonies and oral interviews (Jewish and Ukrainian), written memoirs of and personal correspondence with survivors of the Rohatyn ghetto, as well as general histories of the region and the period”. **
And as part of that research, has come an account of those who hid Jewish individuals and families from the Nazis. People like “Mikhailo and Lubomira Belegai, parents of a young daughter and living on a farm in Zhuriv, [who] sheltered three former neighbors, Eliezer Schreier and his young sons, …. for over a year, until the region was liberated. The Belegais provided food and shelter in their barn and other hiding places as needed to avoid detection by Germans and others”. ***
 |
| Fyodor Penderetsky who saved 17 Jews |
Added to which we are going through a period when anti-Semitism is again on the march, and small-minded nationalists are seeking to re-assert their beliefs, often by misrepresenting the activities of settled minority communities.
So, I suggest you follow the links to Rohatyn Jewish Heritage* and their Facebook page.****
And also their annual report for 2018.*****
Location; Rohatyn, Ukraine
Pictures; view toward Rohatyn town centre from the old Jewish cemetery, 2011, brush clearing at Rohatyn’s Old Jewish Cemetery, 2018, © Jay Osborn, courtesy of the Rohatyn Jewish Heritage, The Belegai family, and Fyodor Penderetskiy, who with his wife and son rescued more than 17 Jews in the forest near Bukachivtsi, from Yad Vashem******
*The Rohatyn Jewish Heritage http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/
** The Shoah in Rohatyn, http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/history/timeline-shoah/?fbclid=IwAR1d2zUDT41QqE3sBr4u-jZ0p61hsb8zOF6FlZGNJPuyMtU_Im6LvGnxnDs
***Rohatyn's Wartime Righteous Gentiles, http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/history/righteous-gentiles/?fbclid=IwAR22VkgpNCbw-9gi6uEkDI6g7RVRswjhhsiUuiQLTpiKRtk6a7PcyjBfOWU
**** Rohatyn Jewish Heritage
****** Yad Vashem, Israel’s official state memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, https://www.yadvashem.org/
Thank you again for highlighting our work, and best wishes for 2019!
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