Stanislawow

The Jewish presence in Stanisławów dates from the second half of the 17th century, when the town’s founder and ruler, Stanisław Potocky, allowed Jews to settle there without restrictions, and to own half of the local butchery. The original Jewish population of the town consisted of merchants, leasers of nobles' estates, innkeepers, and artisans. Already in the 1660s-1670s, Stanisławów had a "Jews' Street" with a wooden synagogue. The town's Jewish community shrank in the early 18th century, as a result of the sack of Stanisławów by Russian troops during the Great Northern War (1700-1721), the struggles between the Polish magnates, conflicts between the Jews and the non-Jewish population, and a typhus epidemic. In an attempt to revive the flagging local economy, the rulers of Stanisławów tried to entice the Jews to return to the town, and around 1720 they reconfirmed all the privileges that had been granted to them earlier. As a result, by 1750 Jews made up almost half of the town’s population. The archbishop of Lwów personally permitted the Jews of Stanisławów to build a stone synagogue. In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, Stanisławów became part of the Austrian Empire. Throughout the period of Austrian rule, which lasted until the end of World War I, the Jewish population of Stanisławów grew steadily. In 1900, the city was home to 14,106 Jews, who made up 46.4 percent of the total population. In 1782, the Austrian Emperor Josef II issued an Edict of Tolerance, granting religious freedom to the Jewish population of the Austrian Empire and allowing the Jews to receive an education (albeit only in German). In 1787, a Jewish school, with German as the language of instruction, was opened in Stanisławów, and it operated until 1806. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Stanisławów was home to a network of Jewish educational institutions, both religious and secular ones, including the Or Chaim yeshiva, a talmud torah, a Polish-language Jewish school, and a Jewish college established by the foundation of the German-Jewish philanthropist Maurice de Hirsch. In 1848, a society of maskilim, adherents of the Jewish Enlightenment movement, was established in the city. At the turn of the century, many of the Jewish children in Stanisławów attended Polish gymnasiums and the Realschule. In the early 20th century, several Jewish newspapers and magazines in Yiddish and Hebrew – e.g., Stanislaver Nakhriten, Yidisher Veker, Stanislaver Gloke, and HaYarden – were published in Stanisławów. In 1860, a Reform Jewish community was established in the town, and by the 1890s it had its own "temple" (synagogue). In the late 19th century, Zionist ideas began to spread among the Jews of Stanisławów. In 1898, a Zionist organization was formed in the city, followed by the Bar Kokhba student Zionist organization in the early 20th century. The Jews of Stanisławów took an active part in local political life. Already in the 1870s, they constituted almost half of the members of the town council, and the Jew Dr. A. Nimkhin served as city mayor in 1897-1919. The Jewish community of Stanisławów suffered greatly from the depredations of World War I and its aftermath. Twice, in 1914 and 1916, the city was occupied by Russian troops, who caused widespread destruction and burned the synagogue. Many local Jews fled to Prague or Vienna. At the end of the war, the Jews of Stanisławów were caught in the crossfire of the struggle between Ukrainian and Polish nationalists. In December 1918, Stanisławów became the provisional capital of the short-lived West Ukrainian National Republic, and the seat of the Jewish national council of Eastern Galicia. A Jewish self-defense organization, consisting of demobilized soldiers, was established in the city. In May 1919, the Polish troops occupying Stanisławów carried out a pogrom. For the next two decades, Stanisławów was part of Poland. Already in June 1919, the Polish authorities removed A. Nimkhin from his post as mayor of Stanisławów, fired all the Jewish employees of the municipal, post, and railway offices, and banned Jews from teaching in both public and private schools. However, most of these discriminatory measures were rescinded in August of the same year, after Poland had signed the Minority Treaty of the League of Nations. The 1920s and 1930s witnessed a steady improvement in the economic, social, and political situation of the Jews of Stanisławów. In 1931, the city was home to 24,823 Jews, who made up 34.3 percent of the total population. Most of them were employed in the local light industry. Already in the early 1920s, Jews occupied thirteen out of thirty-six seats on the city council, and the Jewish community of Stanisławów dispatched three representatives to the Polish parliament. In an attempt to combat the alleged Jewish influence on municipal politics, the Polish administration expanded the city boundaries by incorporating numerous nearby villages, which had few Jews (or none at all). Nevertheless, in 1927 A. Ritterman, the leader of the local Zionist organization, managed to be appointed vice-mayor of Stanisławów. In 1922, a Jewish hospital was reopened in Stanisławów. That same year, the Safa Brura school, with Hebrew as the language of instruction, was established in the city. The early 1920s also saw the opening of a Jewish gymnasium, a religious girls' school, and a yeshiva in Stanisławów. In the 1920s and 1930s, some thirty Jewish periodicals in Yiddish and Polish were published in the city. The most prominent of these were the Zionist Yiddish weekly Di Vokh and the monthly literary magazine Shtegn. On the eve of World War II, there were fifty-five synagogues and Jewish prayer houses in Stanisławów. Following the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, many Jewish refugees from the western and central parts of Poland arrived in Stanisławów. In the aftermath of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Stanisławów became part of the Soviet Union, and it was renamed Stanislav. The Soviet authorities shut down all the Jewish organizations in the city and arrested their leaders. All forms of private economic activity were banned, and several show trials of Jewish merchants were held. On July 2, 1941, after the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, Stanisławów was occupied by Hungarian troops, the allies of Nazi Germany. During the Hungarian occupation, which lasted until the end of July 1941, several thousand Jews were deported to Stanisławów from the Hungarian-occupied Carpathian Ruthenia. During this period, the local Jews were ordered to wear yellow badges on their clothes. On July 26, 1941, the city was handed over to a German administration, which proceeded to set up a Judenrat and replace the yellow badge with an armband displaying the Star of David. After setting up shop in Stanisławów, the Germans began to massacre the Jews. In August 1941, about a thousand members of the local Jewish intelligentsia were shot in a forest some 10 km from Stanisławów. In mid-October of the same year, approximately 10,000 more Jews were murdered at the Jewish cemetery. In December 1941, a fenced-off ghetto was established in Stanisławów. A separate ghetto was set up on the premises of the former grain mill (the so-called Rudolf’s Mill), within the borders of the main ghetto; this one was intended to accommodate the Jewish deportees from Hungarian Carpathian Ruthenia, the Jews from the surrounding localities, and the refugees who had tried to escape into Hungary, but were returned by the Hungarian authorities. In the winter of 1941-1942, many ghetto inmates died from starvation and disease. In late March 1942, the Jews who had been brought from Hungary the previous year, along with five thousand local Jews, were deported to the Bełżec extermination camp. In August 1942, the Germans hanged all the Judenrat members and shot about a thousand more Jews. In September that year, five thousand Jews from Stanisławów were deported to Bełżec. The extermination of the city's remaining Jews continued unabated until February 1943, when the last Jews of Stanisławów were shot at the Jewish cemetery. Only about 1,500 Jews from Stanisławów survived the Holocaust, many of them by joining the partisan units that operated in the area. The Red Army liberated Stanisławów on July 27, 1944. In 1962, the city was renamed Ivano-Frankivsk, in honor of the Ukrainian writer and poet Ivan Franko.