The story and the truth lie in the detail …… the Rohatyn Jewish Heritage

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.

Rohatyn from the old Jewish cemetery, 2011

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.

Brush clearing at the old Jewish cemetery, 2018

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.

The Belegai family, date unknown

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”. ***

Fyodor Penderetsky who saved 17 Jews

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/

The Rohatyn Jewish Heritage Program

Rohatyn is a city in western Ukraine, with a population of 7,983, and a history dating back to at least 1184.

Rohatyn, from the Jewish cemetery, 2011

And I doubt I would ever have come across it, were it not for the Rohatyn Jewish Heritage Program 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”.*

During the last World War that Jewish community was all but wiped out, with almost all of the 3000 Jewish inhabitants murdered during the Holocaust.

Brush clearing, old Jewish cemetery, 2018

“Today it is difficult to see evidence of the long history of Rohatyn’s Jewish community anywhere in town, but the surviving sites and physical heritage, together with records and family stories, can help to reanimate this significant part of life in Rohatyn”.

A shared experience, 2012

And that in part is what the program is all about, with active projects including both physical work in Rohatyn recovering Jewish headstone and ‘virtual’ work on the website and its educational resources. Future projects such as cemetery rehabilitation are currently in the planning and costing phases”

I could say more, but that would only be repeat their web site, so I will just leave you with the link to the site and urge you to visit Rohatyn Jewish Heritage Program.

Alternatively, there is a facebook site, Rohatyn Jewish Heritage

Location; Rohatyn, Ukraine

Pictures; view toward Rohatyn town centre from the old Jewish cemetery, 2011, brush clearing at Rohatyn’s Old Jewish Cemetery, 2018, a shared experience during headstone recovery work, 2012  © Jay Osborn courtesy of the Rohatyn Jewish Heritage,

*The Rohatyn Jewish Heritage,  http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/

We Remember ............

On Holocaust Memorial Day, I have reproduced the following post from Marla Raucher Osborn. 

“Remembering today my grandmother's HORN family of Rohatyn, with four cousins shown in this 1937 Hebrew school photo. None of these children survived. #WeRemember”*


It is sobering to read that a recent survey revealed “Five per cent of UK adults don’t believe the Holocaust – the intentional murder of six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators – really happened and one in 12 (8%) say the scale of the Holocaust has been exaggerated, according to research released on Holocaust Memorial Day (Sunday 27 January 2019).

The poll, commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, a charity established and funded by the UK government to promote and support the international day of remembrance”.**

Anyone wishing to learn more about the Holocaust in Rohatyn should go to the website:
http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/history/timeline-shoah/

The photo is shown and sourced on our page on the interwar years:
http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/history/timeline-interwar/

Picture; from Rohatyn Yizkor Book



*Marla Raucher Osborn, Project Lead Jewish Headstone Recovery at Rohatyn Jewish Heritage

**Holocaust Memorial Day Trust https://www.hmd.org.uk/

A community revealed ……………..

Now one of the tasks of any one engaged in history is to write about those who have been forgotten or in some cases removed from the story.

Walking towards the Gestapo Headquarters, Rohatyn, 2014

And I don’t think that is either a pretentious observation, or a vacuous one, and while it might appear obvious to some it is still worth restating.

It starts with those engaged in peeling back their own family history and in the process come to understand more about the time and place in which their relatives lived.

In my case I was never content with creating a long list of names and connections, I wanted the context and having found that context I wanted to place their lives into the bigger picture to best understand who they were, and something of the challenges and obstacles they faced.

All of which requires a lot of research and becomes one of those “studies in depth” which for most of us remain a very personal exercise, but can also offer up a wider insight into the lives of people at a moment in time.

And when that study is not confined to one family but to a whole community which was deliberately wiped out in fulfilment of a hideous ideology, then a very important piece of work is in play.

Cleaning the lettering of a headstone, 2011

That “work” is being undertaken in a small town in the Ukraine, where “a volunteer-led program of heritage preservation and education, [is] working to re-connect the history of Rohatyn’s now-lost Jewish community with the people and places of the modern town”.*

It is a story I keep coming back to and will continue to do so, for here is a perfect example where a study brings a community out of the shadows, offers a context to their lives and by extension brings together a diverse group of people.

Leading a tour of the Jewish community exhibition

So, with “the cooperation of current Rohatyn residents and volunteers from around the world, …. the program focuses primarily on recovery of Jewish headstone fragments discovered in town and their return to the old Jewish cemetery. 

Future include a cleanup and rehabilitation of the old cemetery, a modest memorial space for recovered headstone fragments, and the development of educational materials to support a renewed appreciation of the intertwined communities which once lived in Rohatyn”.

Remember**

There are clear connections with what is going on across the world and in Europe where once again ideas of intolerance and hate are being peddled under the guise of nationalism.

Now I am sure there will be similar work being undertaken across the globe, each of which will advance our knowledge and shine a new light on forgotten communities and individuals but for me this project has become a personal one, and while I doubt I will ever be able to make a physical contribution to the work I continue to follow it and write about it on the blog.

Location, Rohatyn, Ukraine

Pictures; Rabbi Kolesnik and Mikhailo Vorobets walking towards the courtyard of the former Gestapo headquarters in Rohatyn, 2014, and Dr. Alex Feller cleaning lettering on a headstone fragment found at a Rohatyn roadside, 2011, leading the tour, and Remember,  © Jay Osborn

* Rohatyn Jewish Heritage, http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/

**You can support Rohatyn Jewish Heritage with a tax-deductible donation:
http://rohatynjewishheritage.org/en/support/how-to-help/