shtetl projektprez
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POLISH LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH 1619
Pink = Kingdom of Poland
Lt. Pink = Duchy of Prussia
Purple = Grand Duch of Lithuania
Lt. Gray = Duchy of Courland
SH
SHTETL means small town in Yiddish. The SHTETLS were predominately Jewish and ranged in population from several hundred to several thousand inhabitants. A SHTOT is a larger SHTETL and could be compared to a city rather than a small town.
SHBefore WWII there were thousands of Shtetls and Shtots in Central and Eastern Europe, the majority of these were located in what is now Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine.
After WWII 90 percent of the Lithuanian (Litvak) and Polish (Galician) and 60 percent of the Ukrainian Shtetl inhabitants were wiped out by the Nazis.
SHAlmost all of the remaining Polish and Lithuanian Jews for Israel or America. In Ukraine, many of the Jews who survived stayed behind, some returning to Shtetls , others settling in larger Shtots like Chernivtsi and Lviv.
SH
But another plague would befall those survivors. Fifty years of Communism had taken its toll and intermittent periods of state-sponsored anti-semitism as well as general neglect greatly reduced the Jewish populations in living Shtetls as well as cultural sites in the remnant Shtetls.
SH
Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th Century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania.
After the Partitions of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth between Hapsburg, Russian and Prussian Empires, over a million Jews now found themselves living in the Russian Empire in the late 1790’s.
The period between 1791 and 1812 saw the formation under special decrees of the Russian legislature, of what was restricted space, both territorial and legal, known as the PALE OF SETTLEMENT, i.e. “the areas where the Jews were permitted to settle and reside.” It included the following provinces:
NW RUSSIA: Vitebsk, Minsk, Mogilev, Kovno & Grodno provinces
SW RUSSIA: Volhyn, Kiev, Podolsk, Bessarabia & Kherson provinces
SE RUSSIA: Chernigov, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav & Tavrichesky provinces
KINGDOM OF POLAND: Suvalki, Sedlec, Lublin, Lomza, Plotsk, Warsaw, Petrokovskaya, Kalishskaya, Radom & Keletskaya provinces.
SH
So the notion of Shtetl, just like the fate and history of the Ashkenazi Jews, is inextricably linked with the geopolitical upheavals of Poland and its neighors, specifically the partitions of Poland and the Pale of Settlement placed upon Polish-Lithuanian Jews by the Russians.
The three partitions of Poland took place in
1772, 1793 and 1795
These maps show how Poland changed during the period it was under Napoleonic rule (Duchy of Warsaw), Congress Poland or Kingdom of Poland (within the Russian Empire), and Independent Poland (after 1921).
T h e J e w s w h o f o u n d themselves in Prussian or Hapsburg territory fared much better and many of them became assimilated. Emancipation took place in these territories generations before they were finally granted in the Russian Empire.
MAP OF AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN PROVINCE OF GALICIA AFTER 1815
Congress Poland was created out of the Duchy of Warsaw at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when European states reorganized Europe following the Napoleonic wars. The creation of Congress Poland created a partition of Polish lands in which the state was divided and ruled between Russia, Austria and Prussia
RUMP POLAND BECAME DUCHY OF WARSAW (1807-1813)
IT BECAME CONGRESS POLAND w/in RUSSIAN EMPIRE (1815-1921)
So once again the fate of Eastern European Jews
became inextricably linked
with the geopolitics of
Poland
DESPITE ECONOMIC HARDSHIPS, THE POPULATION OF THE JEWS GREW TO
NEARLY 5 MILLION IN THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT BY THE END OF THE 19TH
CENTURY.
The Shtetl epitomized Jewish community life in central and Eastern Europe. Everything centered around the community: its religious observances, a major emphasis on studying the Talmud and carrying for one another.
Based on religious devotion, a unique subculture evolved, it included a sense of ethnic identity, and a collective memory of living in a thousand- year-old diaspora that made itself apparent through folk tradition.
It was in the shtetl that a full-fledged ethno-cultural environment took shape, which ultimately influenced the culture of Eastern European Jews. It captured and encapsulated a Jewish cultural DNA.
POLAND (1921-1939)
POLAND’S JEWISH COMMUNITIES BEFORE WWII
SHTOTS
SHTETLS
JEWISH QUARTERS
SHTOTS & SHTETLS
LUBLIN SHTOT 100 YEARS AGO
LUBLIN WAS OFTEN REFERRED TO AS THEJERUSALEM OF THE SOUTH
THE NEXT TWO PICTURES ARE CURRENT RENOVATIONS TAKING PLACE BENEATH THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE HISTORIC GRODZKA GATE, THAT SEPARATED THE CHRISTIAN AND
JEWISH PARTS OF LUBLIN UNTIL WWII
WROCLAW
IN SW POLANDCAPITAL OF HAPSBURG PROVINCE OF SILESIA
HAD A SIGNIFICANT PRE-WAR JEWISH POPULATION.
AMONG THEM WAS FRITZ STERN
WARSAW
CAPITAL OF POLAND
HAD A SIGNIFICANT PRE-WAR JEWISH POPULATION.
KAUNAS
CULTURAL & HISTORICAL CAPITAL OF LITHUANIA
HAD A SIGNIFICANT PRE-WAR JEWISH POPULATION.
CHORALINER SYNAGOGUE
KAUNAS, LITHUANIA
FORMER JEWISH ORPHANAGE IN
KAUNAS, LITHUANIA
•VILNIUS, CAPITAL OF LITHUANIA, WAS PART OF POLAND UNTIL 1939.
IN ITS HEYDAY, IT WAS OFTEN REFERRED TO AS THE JERUSALEM OF THE NORTH. JEWS SETTLED THERE IN THE 15TH CENTURY. BEFORE WWII 100,000 JEWS LIVED IN VILNIUS. 26,000 OF THEM SURVIVED THE HOLOCAUST. TODAY, THERE ARE 5,000 JEWS LIVING IN VILNIUS.
THERE WERE ONCE OVER 100 SYNAGOGUES IN VILNIUS, NOW THERE IS ONLY ONE FUNCTIONING SYNAGOGUE.
SHTETL #1
VABALNINKAS
IN NORTH CENTRAL LITHUANIA
(2 1/2 HOURS DRIVE NORTH OF KAUNAS)
SHSHTETL #2
BERSHAD
IN THE PODOLIA REGION OF CENTRAL UKRAINE
(Between Kiev and Odessa)
The shetls in this particular region of Ukraine were actually living shtetls up until just a few years ago. By a fluke of history, most of the Jews of this region of Ukraine known as Transnistria survived the Holocaust because they fell under Romanian rather than German occupation during the war.
SHTETL #3
TREBIC
IN MORAVIAN REGION IN SOUTHERN
CZECH REPUBLIC
Bukovina was last of 2 provinces to be added to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1774 (the other one being Galicia). It’s crown jewel and capital city was Chernivitsi, a city in which the Austrian Emperor encouraged Jews to settle. It became the cultural capital of modern Jewish culture and incubator for many movements. The first Yiddish Conference was held there in 1908 and another one marking the 100th Anniversary was held there last year.
SHTOT
CHERNIVTSI(BUKOVINA)
IN SW UKRAINE
PaulCelan
RoseAuslander
Grosschil Synagogue
MAHSIKE SHABBOT
FORMER SCHOOL NOW HOSPITAL
A recurring theme in Ukraine:
Synagogue turned movie theater
SHTETL #4
VASHKIVTSI
(BUKOVINA)JUST OUTSIDE OF CHERNIVTSI
SOUTHWESTERN UKRAINE
SHTETL #5
VYZHNYTSIA(BUKOVINA)
JUST OUTSIDE OF CHERNIVTSI SOUTHWESTERN UKRAINE
SHTOT
LVIV(EASTERN GALICIA)
IN WESTERN UKRAINE
MAP OF AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN PROVINCE OF GALICIA AFTER 1815