Kolomyja

Jews lived in Kolomyja from at least the 16th century, when the town was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1569, the local Jewish community, which then numbered 120 members, was granted equal rights in municipal matters. The Jewish community of Kolomyja was destroyed in the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648-1649, but reestablished shortly afterward. During that period, most local Jews engaged in the leasing of forest lands and in the timber trade. In 1772, as a result of the First Partition of Poland, Kolomyja, along with the rest of Galicia, was incorporated into the Austrian Empire. Its Jewish community grew steadily throughout the 19th century, numbering 16,568 members (48.4 percent of the town’s total population) in 1900. The town was an important center of Chassidism. Until the late 19th century, the Jewish educational system in Kolomyja remained predominantly religious, even though an elementary school for Jewish children, with German as the language of instruction, had been opened in the town back in 1788, following the Jewish educational reform of Austrian Emperor Josef II (that school operated until 1809). In 1886, the Jewish philanthropic association Israelitische Allianz zu Wien opened a modern Jewish elementary school in Kolomyja, which was later incorporated into the Jewish school network sponsored by the Jewish philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch. Following the emancipation of the Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867-1868, the Jews of Kolomyja became politically active on all levels, sending delegates to both the regional Galician parliament and to the Imperial Parliament, and taking an active part in municipal politics. From the late 19th century, Jews served as mayors and vice-mayors of Kolomyja. At that time, Kolomyja also played a major role in the development of the Zionist movement in Galicia. A number of Yiddish newspapers – such as Yidishe Folkstsaytung, Der Folksfraynd, and Ha'am/Dos Folk – were published in Kolomyja. In those years, local Jewish printers published materials not only in Yiddish and Hebrew, but in Polish and Ukrainian, as well. The Jews of Kolomyja suffered greatly from the depredations of World War I and its aftermath. Thrice in the course of the war, Kolomyja was occupied by Russian troops, who assaulted Jews and looted and destroyed their property. Many Jews left the town in this period, fleeing westward into Czech and Hungarian territory, and to Vienna. In 1918-1919, the Jews of Kolomyja found themselves in the crossfire of the clash between Polish and Ukrainian nationalists, when the town became part of the short-lived Western Ukrainian National Republic, before being incorporated into Poland in 1919. The discriminatory economic policies of the Polish state resulted in the pauperization of the Jews in Kolomyja, leading to a decline in their numbers. In 1920, the town was home to about 15,000 Jews (45.8 percent of the total population), but this number had fallen to 14,322 by 1931. Socialist Zionist organizations – Hashomer Hatzair, Hitakhdut, and HeHalutz – were active in Kolomyja, and the last of these set up an agricultural training commune for Jewish youths contemplating Aliyah to the Land of Israel. In the 1920s, the Revisionist Zionist Betar youth movement organized paramilitary squads in the town and offered military training to young Jews. During this period, the town was home to a Zionist newspaper named “Our Voice”, which came out in Polish (Nasz głos) and in Yiddish (Unzere shtime). In 1930, Israel Josef Lau, the uncle of the future Chief Rabbi of Israel, Israel Meir Lau, was elected Rabbi of Kolomyja. Under Polish rule, most of the Jews of Kolomyja continued to be artisans and traders. Jews were also overrepresented in the professions (e.g., medicine and law). On the eve of World War II, several Jewish educational establishments existed in Kolomyja, including two gymnasiums and a Hebrew-language “Tarbut” school. In 1938-1939, following the Anschluss and the occupation of the Czech lands, Kolomyja witnessed an influx of Jewish refugees from Austria and Czechoslovakia. In September 1939, these were followed by refugees from the German-invaded western and central regions of Poland. In the fall of that year, Kolomyja, along with the surrounding area, was annexed by the USSR. The Soviet authorities cracked down on Jewish life in the town, dissolving all the Jewish organizations and arresting Jewish activists. The new authorities also banned all forms of private economic activity, leaving many of the local Jews unemployed, or forcing them to seek out new employment. At the same time, the new authorities encouraged cultural activities in Yiddish, and there was a Yiddish drama studio in Kolomyja. The Soviets also drastically reorganized the Jewish educational system in the town. Religious education was banned, and Hebrew could no longer be used as the language of instruction. In 1939, seven Yiddish-language primary schools and one secondary school were opened in the town. Very few Jews were able to leave Kolomyja following the outbreak of the Soviet-German War. On July 1, 1941, the town was occupied by the Hungarian army, which had joined in the Nazi invasion of the USSR. The Hungarian military authorities prevented local Ukrainian nationalists from carrying out a large-scale anti-Jewish pogrom. Nevertheless, the Jews of Kolomyja were already being assaulted and mistreated by their Ukrainian neighbors. The Hungarian authorities required all the Jews to wear armbands with the Star of David, restricted their movement, and forced them to perform various grueling tasks. A certain number of Jewish deportees from the Hungarian-annexed Carpathian Ruthenia arrived in Kolomyja at this time. In early August 1941, Kolomyja was handed over to the Germans, who ordered the local Jews to wear white armbands with a blue Star of David and established a Judenrat, which was headed by the textile industrialist Markus (Motl) Horowitz. The Jews were ordered to hand over all their gold, silver, valuables, foreign currency, and furs. In the fall of 1941, Jews from the surrounding villages and towns were brought to Kolomyja and settled in a neighborhood that had a mostly Jewish population. Several thousand Jews from Kolomyja were murdered as early as October 1941-January 1942, in a number of operations in a forest several kilometers north of the town. In March 1942, three ghettos were established in Kolomyja, housing a total of about 20,000 Jews from the town and the surrounding area. A Jewish police force, known as the “Order Service,” was established to keep order in the ghettos. In April, September, and October that year, several thousand inmates of these ghettos were deported to the Bełżec death camp. The head of the Judenrat, Markus Horowitz, committed suicide in the fall of 1942. On January 20, 1943, the town's remaining Jews, who numbered about 2,000, were confined to several houses, and shot two weeks later. The Red Army liberated Kolomyja on March 29, 1944.