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Przemysl
Yiddish: Premishla, Premishle. Przemyśl is a district seat in the Podkarpackie voivodship, situated on a hill above the San river, at the entrance of the "Przemyśl Gate", which opens the main route towards the East. It is the last area of mountains in the Western Carpathians.
Sights of interest:
- the forts along the "Fortress Przemyśl" route
- the old market square
- the fourteenth century castle on the hill
- fifteenth century Roman Catholic cathedral with Baroque interior and Gothic presbytery
- seventeenth century Baroque Carmelite church and monastery
- seventeenth century Baroque Reformati church and monastery
- Benedictine convent
- eighteenth century Baroque Franciscan church with frescoes by Stanisław Stroiński
- Greek Catholic cathedral (since 1991; earlier: seventeenth century Jesuit church, then from the nineteenth century the garrison church of the Heart of Jesus)
- sixteenth century manor house of Stanisław Orzechowski
- eighteenth century clock tower
- Tatar mound
- defensive walls at ul. Waygart and ul. Basztowa
Historical outline
The Przemyśl region was settled already in prehistoric times. On the basis of archeological research, we know that a trading settlement along the route leading from the Black Sea to the Baltic existed in the area of present-day Przemyśl during the time of the Roman Empire. The oldest document dates back to 981, from the Rus' chronicle by the monk Nestor, about the expedition of the Rus' prince Vladimir against the Lachs, when for a short time Przemyśl was annexed to Rus'. During the reign of the Polish king Bolesław Chrobry, Przemyśl was one of the Piast dynasty's most important strongholds. In approximately the year 1018, Chrobry erected a stone church - a rotunda - as well as a princely palatium, remains of which can be seen at the castle hill. In the centuries to come, the town passed from hand to hand, and it proved a place where the political influences of Poland, Rus' and Hungary all came into play at various times. In the thirteenth century, the stronghold was inhabited by Poles, Rusyns, Germans, Jews, Tatars and Armenians. Around the year 1320, prince Lew II granted Przemyśl a town charter based on Magdeburg Law.
After the Halych-Volodymyr line of the Rurik family died out, the Mazovian prince Bolesław assumed power in the principality, ruling as Jerzy II. A Latin bishopric was founded during his rule in Przemyśl in 1340. After the death of Jerzy II, Przemyśl still on good terms with Polish rulers - passed into the hands of king Kazimierz the Great. This was a time of dynamic growth for the town, trade increased and goods were shipped down the San to Bydgoszcz, Toruń and Gdańsk. The population also grew, as did the number of outstanding craftsmen and merchants, including foreign ones. In the late fourteenth century, the town's first guilds were founded. Because of constant attacks by Tatars and Wallachs, Przemyśl was fortified by a high wall with nine turrets and three gates. In the second half of the sixteenth century, a Renaissance town hall was erected, which the Austrians eventually demolished in the eighteenth century.
In the seventeenth century wars and fires meant a downturn in the town's fortunes, which only worsened during the partitions. Przemyśl was incorporated into a newly created province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire called "The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria", and became district capital. The town hall was demolished by decree of the partitioning powers, as well as the entire Western side of the market square and the defensive walls. After the religious orders were abolished, their former buildings were either torn down or used for other purposes - they were for example given to the military, or turned into German schools. The Austrians sold the town to count Ignacy Cetner, which meant that it lost its previous status as a royal town. Emperor Joseph II bought it again in 1783 and granted it new rights, privileges and a crest.
During the nineteenth century, the town became a livelier place, as Poles� national aspirations grew and an underground movement took shape. Economic developments also had an impact, such as the creation of a railway link between Vienna and Lwów. In 1873, the Austrians began construction on "fortress Przemyśl", which at that time was one of the largest in Europe. The town was encircled by two rings - the inner ring had a circumference of 15 km, the outer one 45 km. The rings were divided into six defensive sections, situated on seventeen hills surrounding Przemyśl.
The castle. Photo: A.Olej&K. Kobus:
During the First World War the partitioning armies waged heavy battles here, during which tens of thousands of soldiers were killed. The fortress experienced three sieges and surrendered 22 March 1915, when it ran out of water. The fortress's commandant, General Herman Kusmanek, surrendered it to the Russians, having previously destroyed the most important forts, equipment and bridges. On 3 June 1915, Przemyśl was nevertheless retaken by the Austrians, and the Russians retreated.
Wartime Przemyśl was the backdrop for the events in the fourth volume of Jaroslav Ha�ek's The Good Soldier �vejk. The town was liberated on 1 November 1918, and a local government was created that was comprised of representatives of the Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian populations. The Ukrainians, however, in breach of agreements, began to disarm Polish detachments and occupy the town. The left-bank part of the town managed to defend itself thanks to the heroic efforts of its young people. In 1938, Przemyśl residents commemorated their fighting with a memorial titled "Przemyśl Eaglets", which was destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt only in 1994.
Przemysl, Dworskiego street. Photo: A.Olej&K. Kobus:
During the interwar period Przemyśl was one of the largest towns in the Lwów voivodship, though it never managed to regain its former glory. During the Second World War, as the result of borders drawn in the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, the town found itself in two zones of occupation: the Zasanie area of Przemyśl in the west, which was in German hands, and right-bank Przemyśl, which was held by the Soviets. This situation continued until 28 June 1941, when the Germans assumed complete control. During the war, about 40% of the town's buildings were destroyed.
The intelligentsia, persecuted by both the Soviets and the Germans, suffered very high losses. Over 23,000 people were killed and between 10,000 and 20,000 were deported. After being liberated from the German occupation on 27 July 1944, Przemyśl experienced a period of clashes with and attacks by Ukrainian nationalists. As a result of decisions made at Yalta, the area of Przemyśl was settled by Poles who had been driven out of Poland's prewar eastern areas, the Kresy, and the Ukrainian population was resettled in the Western territories that had been previously been part of Germany. This inevitably led to conflicts. The situation stabilized during the 1950's.
From 1975 to 1998, Przemyśl was the voivodship capital.
Jews of Przemyśl
The first evidence of Jewish settlement dates back to the fifteenth century, when they began living in Przemyśl on the basis of a privilege granted by Kazimierz the Great in 1367 to the Jews of Rus and Małopolska. They were concentrated primarily in the town�s north-eastern section, within the defensive walls. According to the census of 1542, eighteen Jewish families were living in Przemyśl at that time, including one glazier and one doctor. This number quickly grew, however.
A legend has survived about bishop Mikołaj Błażejowski (1452-1474): as the bishop was walking through the Zasanie district, a poor Jew asked him for help for his wife, who was giving birth. The bishop, it is said, went into the Jewish home and put his ring on the finger of the Jew�s wife, thus ensuring a good outcome. The ring, which after that was called �the ring of women in childbed�, was later kept by the cathedral chapter and loaned to women in need of it as late as the nineteenth century.
In 1559 the Polish king Zygmunt August granted the Jews a privilege allowing them to settle freely in Przemyśl and to engage in trade. After receiving this privilege, the Jews began their efforts to build a synagogue, known to us from the trial documents of Barbara Krasicka and Anna Korytowska. The two women demanded that the Jewish Community return land that their father had given to his lover - a Jewish woman. In time this land had become the property of the Jewish Community. The matter was heard by the king, who decreed that Jews would only be able to respond at the royal court regarding the matter of the synagogue and cemetery. As a result, the entire case would have to be heard again, which would entail significant costs.
Though it is difficult to determine when the first synagogue was built, it is known that it was wooden, and that the first mention of its existence in the municipal records dates back to 1559. In 1560 there is a document referring to the Jewish kahal building. The first synagogue built officially and legally was erected in 1570, though it only was used for that purpose for twenty years. In the 1590's the Jewish Community began its efforts to gain permission from the church authorities for the construction of a masonry synagogue. The Community was granted that permission, and a Renaissance synagogue was built, whose attic was finished in 1594. A small school and Talmudic academy for older boys were housed at the synagogue, too, and it also had a kahal room for meetings of the Community elders. The building was completely destroyed during the fighting that took place between the Germans and Soviets in 1941.
Successive kings confirmed privileges that had been granted earlier, and also issued new ones, which meant that the Przemyśl community now enjoyed complete independence. Thus for example Stefan Czarniecki granted Jews the privilege of being allowed to imprison other Jews, mete out punishment by flogging, and even by the severing of ears. In the privileges granted by king Władysław IV in 1638, on the other hand, we see the title "arch-rabbi of the Przemyśl land", which confirms the authority of the Przemyśl Community over the other Jewish Communities in that area of Poland.
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The conflicts that took place between the Jewish and Polish communities had their basis in economic factors, although religious rhetoric was also used in these disputes. The numerous privileges for Jews meant that they came to monopolize small-scale trade, gradually eliminating burghers and Przemyśl traders from the market, which was the Przemyśl residents' main cause for complaint. They even directed their grievances to the local bishops, pointing out numerous times that the hierarchs themselves prefer trading with Jews. That relationship was most difficult in the seventeenth century - such a stormy one for Poland. The situation, however, ended in an agreement between the Jews and the Przemyśl burghers in 1645 that regulated their mutual obligations and rights.
With the partitions of Poland Przemyśl declined and the Jewish Community lost ground in terms of the progress it had made. The Jews were subject to the partitioning power's policy of Germanization and were limited - as were the Poles - in their ability to engage in educational and cultural activities.
During the interwar period in Przemyśl in addition to schools and religious institutions there were also a number of cultural and educational institutions. These included the Jewish Dramatic and Musical Society Juwal, the Mandolinists' Club Canzonetta, the E. R. Kamińska Jewish Dramatic Circle, the Jakub Gordin Jewish Workers� Stage, the Social Club, the Young People's Social Club, the Scholarly Reading Room and the Iwria Association. Moreover, there were also local branches of national associations, such as Kultur-Liga, the Society of the Friends of YIVO, the Society of Friends of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Central Jewish School Organization (CISZO), and the Jewish Cultural and Education Association "Yavne". Other organizations involved in cultural activities included the "Humanitas" Association of B'nai B'rith, founded in 1924, as well as the Union of Jewish Participants in the Struggle for Polish Independence.
During the Second World War Przemyśl was first under both Soviet (the old part of town) and German occupation (Zasanie area) from September 1939 to June 1941. The San river was the border between the two zones of occupation. Before this border was finalized, the Germans deported all the Jews to right-bank Przemyśl, which remained in Soviet hands. For the several dozen Jews still in Zasanie, a ghetto was created, comprised of two buildings on ul. Dolińskiego. These were for the most part old people and sick women, who were killed in June 1942.
Under Soviet occupation, all private institutions lost their right to exist. The kahal's property was nationalized, the activities of all political parties were suspended and their leaders arrested and sent to camps deep within the Soviet Union. Jews who escaped from the areas occupied by the Germans were arrested and killed, having been charged with espionage. In April and May 1940, about 7,000 Jews were deported from Przemyśl to the camps. Industrial enterprises and workshops were subject to nationalization, and craftsmen were forcibly organized into "cooperatives". The orphanage, old people's home, hospital and Jewish schools were nationalized. Lawyers, except a few, were denied the right to practice their profession. Houses of prayer were turned into centers for aid to the poor.
After the Germans entered in June 1941, the organized extermination of the Jewish population began, just as in the rest of the Generalgouvernement. At first, the Jews were forced to make financial and material contributions. The occupying power confiscated immoveable and moveable property, forced Jews to work on roads and unloading railway cars. The mass extermination began on 20 June 1942, when the Germans sent the first transport of one hundred men to the Janów camp in Lwów.
In July 1942, the Germans created a ghetto to which they sent Jews from all over the district. About 22,000 people passed through the Przemyśl ghetto. After the ghetto was closed in late July and early August 1942, the Germans sent over 10,000 people to the camp at Bełżec. During this action, several hundred others were shot in the Grochowce forest. The next large-scale action took place in November, when about 4,000 people were taken to the camp in Bełżec.
The ghetto�s area was then reduced and divided into two zones "A" - for those who were working - and "B", for people who were not. The latter were liquidated in September 1943. About 3,000 people were sent to the camp in Auschwitz, and 100 to the forced labor camp in Szebna, near Jasło. In order to completely and definitively close ghetto "B", the Germans announced that people in hiding who voluntarily came forward would be sent to the labor camp. Five hundred additional people presented themselves, and were shot by the Germans on ul. Kopernika. The Germans liquidated ghetto "A" in September and October 1943 and February 1944, sending anyone still alive to the camp in Szebna and to the labor camp in Stalowa Wola and Płaszów.
The fate of Przemyśl�s Jews during the Second World War has been described in a book titled I Remember Every Day...: The Fates of the Jews of Przemyśl During World War II, published by the Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk in Przemyśl and by Remembrance & Reconciliation, Inc., in Ann Arbor, Michigan (Przemyśl, 2002). It was edited by John J. Hartman and Jacek Krochmal. This publication also contains interviews with Sisters Bernarda Sidełko and Ligoria Grenda of the order of the Servants of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (called the Sercanki), who saved Jewish children and were honored with the award Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
Cemeteries
The old Jewish cemetery.
The cemetery is first mentioned in documents dating back to the sixteenth century. According to tradition, the kirkut (which in that region was known as an okopisko) was situated outside the town proper, in the Podgórze suburb. There is no indication today of what this place used to be, except for a small cement gate that linked the cemetery with the Jewish hospital. There are also remains of one of the cemetery�s brick walls along ul. Rakoczego.
The cemetery existed for about four centuries, and its boundaries expanded as the town's population grew. In the late nineteenth century, it occupied about two hectares (4.9 acres) from ul. Słowackiego to the Jewish hospital and Teich brick-yard. The town's growth meant that buildings eventually reached the cemetery itself. The old cemetery was officially closed at the end of the nineteenth century, and a new one was created, adjacent to the main cemetery. During the Second World War, the Germans forced Jews who had been brought from the ghetto to destroy the cemetery completely, and used the stone matsevot to reinforce roads and build bridges. After the war, the area was treated as a place for investment: on part of it, the National Defense League's buildings were built. Now the cemetery, bereft of its headstones and smaller in size, serves as a reminder of the history of the Jews of Przemyśl. Only photographs remain of its oldest and most valuable headstones, probably made in 1928 at the initiative of the Curatorium for the Care of Historical Works of Jewish Art in Lwów. These photographs are housed in the Museum of Israel and in the Przemyśl Regional Museum.
The "new" Jewish cemetery.
Established in the second half of the nineteenth century, currently occupies an area of approximately 3.5 hectares (8.7 acres), and is situated beyond the Main Cemetery. Its layout is irregular, because of the terrain, but also because of a section of the inner ring of the Przemyśl Fortress rampart that is located within its boundaries. The oldest headstones are in its northern section, which is reserved for women. The most elaborate and elegant are located near ul. Słowackiego, where members of Przemyśl�s wealthiest Jewish families were buried. Their headstones were made out of high-quality material, and sometimes their ornamentation suggests the families had been assimilated. There are, for example, decorative balustrades similar to those seen in Catholic cemeteries, and the floral ornamentation exhibits folk stylization. Moreover, the inscriptions are either bilingual, or only in Polish. A high wall around the cemetery and an elegant main gate were built in 1913.
Approximately three hundred matsevot from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have survived, though unfortunately many of them are in very poor condition. Made primarily out of sandstone, they have deteriorated. Just near the main gate there is an obelisk with inscriptions in both Polish and Hebrew: "To the Memory of the 4,000 Jewish Victims of Nazi Crimes During the Years 1939-1944". Alongside there is a mass grave with the remains of forty Jews from Medyka who were killed in 1943. Their bodies were exhumed and moved to the cemetery in 1951 by the Przemyśl Section of the Jewish Social and Cultural Society.
Far inside the kirkut, in its northwestern part, there are twelve mass graves with cement plaques in both Polish and Hebrew. They are the graves of the Jewish victims of mass executions in Przemyśl, Stalowa Wola, Bircza and Lubaczów. A plaque funded by Fryderyk Salzberg in the year 2000 commemorates the death of 102 people who were killed from 17 to 19 September 1939. It is worth noting the symbolic grave in memory of Herman Lieberman (1869-1941), a Przemyśl lawyer, leader of PPS, outstanding speaker, Member of Parliament, initiator of the Dom Robotniczy in Zasanie, and justice minister in the Government-in-Exile in London, where his actual grave is located. Near the gate, a number of memorials have been erected in honor of those who were killed during the Second World War, including to the Erlich family, many of whom were fine lawyers, and also to the community activist and patriot killed at Katyń, Captain Emil Klausner (1893-1940).
The old synagogue
The synagogue was built in 1905-1914 in the neo-Moorish style. The building was financed from the town budget as well as by Jewish banks. The walls were covered with paintings depicting Biblical scenes. During the Second World War, the Germans turned the building into a stable for military horses. After the war, it was used as a textile warehouse. When the building was nationalized, it was transformed in 1967 into the Voivodship Public Library.
The synagogue. Photo: A.Olej&K. Kobus:
In 1978 the Polish Jewish Religious Community relinquished its rights to the building, with the stipulation it be used as a library in perpetuity. It currently houses the Municipal Public Library.
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