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Pre-war Lviv was the center of the Jewish cultural, religious and political life. Writers, poets, scientists and satirists lived and worked in this city. Thanks to the legacy of these authors we can use our imagination to go back in time to the complex multi-cultural reality of pre-war Lviv. In our virtual walk, we will explore the places related to Jewish life, the places of interaction and cultural exchange as well as the tragic history of Lviv ghetto. Our city walk is also an invitation to reflect together on the possibilities and challenges of preserving Jewish heritage for future generations of Lvivians.
City Walk is one of three tours, developed in frames of the workshop "Lemberg/Lwów/לעמבערג/Львів: literary and artistic paths of a multicultural city" of the Summer school, "Jewish History, common history and heritage, culture, cities, environment"", organized by the Center for Urban History in East-Central Europe on 11 July - 5 August 2016.
Lviv Ghetto memorial
Prosp. Chornovola (former Pełtewna) str.
Lviv Ghetto Memorial, photo by Y. Morykvas, Lviv Interactive
We will start our virtual journey from a place where the several-centuries-long history of Lviv’s Jewish community took a tragic turn. This area, known as “the gates of death”, was located in the heart of the Nazi ghetto and became one of the symbols of the Holocaust in Lviv. However, until the early 1990s, the place was not commemorated in any way.
On the wave of the “perestroika” policy, the Sholem Aleichem Jewish Culture Society in Lviv initiated the construction of a monument to the victims of Lviv ghetto (1941-1943). On August 23, 1992, the memorial complex was officially opened (authored by L. Sterenstein of Jerusalem, a former resident of Lviv). Symbolically, the monument was cast as an image of an old man in grief and prayer, lifting his head and hands to the sky. A marble path leads up to it, an imitation of the «road of death». There are symbolic gravestones in the right of the sculpture, while behind the man's back there is a tree, planted as a sign of peace and continuing life. A massive black menorah in front of the monument symbolizes eternal remembrance.
Before the Nazi invasion, Lviv was under the Soviet occupation for 2 years. The Jewish community was approx. 150 thousand people, i.e. more than one-third of the city’s population. After the Nazis invaded Lviv on June 30, 1941, Jews faced not only discriminatory directives but also the aggression from the local population. Several bloody pogroms happened in the summer of 1941 that killed approx. 4-8 thousand victims. The German authorities applied a lot of repressive measures, such as the obligation to wear armbands with the Star of David or the confiscation of Jewish property. The next step was the isolation of Jews in the ghetto.
Lviv ghetto was created in November 1941 in the northern part of the city (Zamarstyniv and Klepariv), near the railway line Lviv-Ternopil. Into an area where 20-30 thousand people used to live, the Nazis resettled 138 thousand Jews and approx. 80 thousand of them were forced to move from the “Arian” part of the city. Disastrous living conditions prevailed in the ghetto. Overpopulation, hunger and epidemics were not the only problems. The Nazis regularly organized brutal “actions”, in which thousands of Jews were killed. After the “actions”, the ghetto area was reduced. Back in August 1941, the forced labor camp was created in Janowska str. in the outskirts of Lviv. Moreover, thousands of Lviv Jews were regularly deported to Bełżec death camp. Only approx. 1 000 Jews from Lviv (less than 1% of the pre-war population) survived the war, and in many cases, that happened thanks to the help of their Polish and Ukrainian neighbors.
We would like to discuss the ways Jewish history of Lviv is commemorated today. We are not responsible for the past, but for the memory of the past. Today this responsibility is necessary for the contemporary Ukrainian society.
Map of the shrinking borders of Lviv Ghetto, 1941-42. Source
What is A "Jewish Quarter"?
Kulisha (Słoneczna) str.
youtube:CQVeL-1BbYs
The use of term “ghetto” dates back much earlier than the WWII. The word comes from Venetian Italian dialect ghèto - the island where Jews were forced to live in XVI-XVIII ct., literally, foundry - from ghetàr (to cast). For several centuries there were two ghettos (closed quarters where Jews were allowed to settle) in Lviv: in the inner city and the Krakowski suburb, which we are exploring in our city walk. These limitations were removed only in 1867, during the Habsburg period of Lviv history. Since XIX century Jews became much more integrated into urban life and settled in different parts of the city - depending on their financial situation rather than nationality. Since then we cannot speak about strictly defined “Jewish Quarters” in Lviv - only the streets with the higher density of Jewish population. Sloneczna (today Kulisha) was one of such streets.
The movie, shot right before the outbreak of the WWII, shows that the interwar Lviv was a place where Jewish community built a vibrant religious, cultural and economic life. Before the Second World War, the city's population numbered 312.231 people, of which 157.490 (50.4%) were Poles, 99.595 (31.9%) – Jews and 49.747 (15.9%) Ukrainians. Lviv Jewish community was extremely diverse. The city was home to both orthodox Jews who mostly spoke Yiddish and followed the religious tradition and law (Halakha) and the so-called acculturated Jews, integrated into Polish culture, who perceived themselves as Poles (and mostly spoke Polish) but also recognized their Jewish belonging. Moreover, the Zionist movement in Galicia has grown stronger.
The interwar period was a special time when, on the one hand, we are dealing with an alarming increase of anti-Semitism among Poles and Ukrainians and the discriminatory policies of Polish government (such as e.g. “bench ghettos” or numerus clausus to limit the number of Jewish students in the universities). On the other hand, the three groups were in constant interaction and Jewish cultural, intellectual and political life flourished. Lviv Jews had a huge impact on the development of the city. Among them were many prominent representatives of the world of science, literature, economy and culture. In this virtual journey, we invite you to learn more about only some of them and reflect on the ways these people are remembered or forgotten in the contemporary city.
The home of Barbara
Kulisha (Słoneczna), 31
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We will continue our walk along the street, named after the Ukrainian writer Panteleimon Kulish. Yet before the war it was called Słoneczna (Sunny). Surprisingly, this beautiful name is connected to the Jewish history of Lviv. Before the war there were more than 40 synagogues. in Lviv. One of them, “Or Shemesh” (The Ray of Sunlight), was situated in the courtyard of the building No. 26 (corner with Miodowa Str.). It is believed to have given the name to Słoneczna street. Listen to the fragment of the testimony by Holocaust survivor Barbara G., who lived at 31 Słoneczna Str. as a young girl and witnessed the destruction of the Or Shemesh synagogue. She tells about the life in her building and neighbourhood before the war, the horrors of Nazi occupation and returning to the places of her childhood today.
Lviv's Colosseum
Kulisha (Słoneczna), 23b-25b
Colosseum Theater, 1920-30s, Urban Media Archive
In her interview Barbara G. mentions the Colosseum theatre and cinema as one of the favourite leisure places in the neighbourhood. Today only historical photos remind us what this building looked like. Like many other Jewish cultural and religious institutions, it was destroyed during WWII. After the war, the territory was given to the Soviet glass-mirrors factory, and today it remains an urban void.
The Colosseum theatre building was situated in Hermann’s passage and constructed in 1898-1900 under a project by architects Michał Fechter and Artur Schleyen. Mainly farces, vaudevilles and operettas were staged here. During the four decades of its history the building hosted cinema, “Nowości” theatre and the State Polish Theatre. This was a place of cultural interaction. Not only Jewish (e.g. the famous Gimpel theater), but also Polish and Ukrainian theatrical troupes performed there. In 1920, free screening of movies was held for Polish soldiers who participated in the Soviet-Polish war.
As the advertisement poster says, in 1933 Pesach Burstein, the world-famous Yiddish-singer, performed at the Colosseum Theater. Here you can listen to his later recording of the Yiddish song "Shabbos nochn kigl" (together with his son Mike Burstein).
Source, Der Nayer Morgen, no. 173, 1933.
Who was Majer Balaban?
M.Balabana str.
Majer Balaban, 1920-30s, Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw
The street we’re standing on is named after Professor Majer Balaban, whose life was tightly connected with the history of this city. Balaban streets exist only in two countries in the world: Israel (for example in Holon) and, as we can see, in Ukraine.
Majer Bałaban was a historian and educator. He is considered to be the founder and architect of modern Polish Jewish historiography and he was the first to synthesize both Polish archival sources and Jewish communal records and rabbinic responsa. Bałaban was born on 20 February 1877 in Lviv to a prominent, but not very prosperous family, members of which had been Jewish communal leaders since the late 18th century. He started his education in a cheder, but then studied in a German-language secondary school, acquiring his Jewish education in Hebrew schools that he attended after regular school hours. He was a student of Lviv University and completed his dissertation in 1904 on Jews in Lviv at the turn of the 17th centuries ("Żydzi lwowscy на przełomie XVIgo і XVIIgo wieku"; 1906 р.). In 1909 he publishes another prominent book on the history of two Jewish communities in Lviv – “The Jewish quarter: its history and monuments” ("Dzielnica żydowska: jej dzieje і zabytki"). . He taught in secondary schools until the outbreak of World War I, then he served as a military chaplain in the Austrian army. While stationed in Lublin, he used his free time there and took advantage of the opportunity to prepare a short monograph on the history of Jews in that community.
From 1920 to 1930, Bałaban was lecturing Jewish history at the University of Warsaw and finally became an associate professor in 1935. He was the only person to hold a university post in Jewish history in Poland between the wars. In that period, he trained an entire generation of Polish Jewish historians.
Bałaban published hundreds of works in Polish, German, Russian, Hebrew, and Yiddish. His popular essays appeared regularly in the Jewish press. He continued writing about Lviv – the city of his childhood and early student years.
An elegant orator in Polish, Bałaban spoke often at the Progressive Synagogue in Lviv before 1914 and at the Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw after 1920. Active in General Zionist circles, he ran unsuccessfully for the parliament in 1919 and 1922. After the outbreak of the WW II, Bałaban chose to remain in Warsaw, becoming the director of the Judenrat archive and continuing his lifelong research. He died because of a heart attack in Warsaw ghetto on 26 December 1942. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw in a separate tomb.
Naming the street after a person is a way of commemorating history of this figure. It is interesting that Balaban was chosen to be indicated here, marking the Jewish history of this street. It is worth mentioning that some of the Jewish institutions were located here, for example the synagogues and some Jewish craft-shops. It would be interesting also to know how this story exists in the modern discourse: do the inhabitants of modern Lviv know who Balaban was? Is this street name important for them, or maybe they do not pay any attention to it? Further in our virtual tour, we will explore different ways of commemorating or forgetting the Jewish past of Lviv.
Coffee and commemoration
Kotlarska, 8
Interior of "Sztuka" cafe in Lviv, 1910s, Urban Media Archive
Different ethnic communities in multicultural Lviv had their own communication centers. Cafes became the spaces of interactions and exchange of ideas. Artists, painters, actors and filmmakers came together to share plans and dreams with people of different origin and status. These were not cafes in contemporary sense of this word but rather coworkings (shared work spaces). Journalist Jozef Mayen wrote in 1934 in Lviv Jewish newspaper “Chwila”: “Today’s cafes in Lviv are more like social institutions: neutral places where people meet people.” Among the most popular coffee houses he mentioned: “Café de la Paix”, “Monopol”, “Imperial”, “Roma”, “Centralna” and “Wiedeńska”. Some of those, e.g. “Monopol” and “Café de la Paix” were considered “literary cafés” as these were gathering sites for Lviv writers. Among them, there was probably Deborah (Dvoyra) Vogel (1900, or 1902, Burshtyn – August 1942, Lviv), a prominent Jewish modernist writer. Deborah studied at Lviv and Jagiellonian Universities. She taught psychology and literature at the Jewish orphanage school in Lviv. She initially wrote in German and Polish, but later switched to Yiddish, although it was not spoken at her home. Along with her mother, husband and son, she was killed in Lviv ghetto. Vogel's poetic heritage is famous for its experimental spirit. Her published books are “Day-Figures″ (1930), ″Mannequins″ (1934), “Acacias Bloom” (1935) etc. Her books are translated into several languages, including Ukrainian (by Yu. Prokhasko).
Coffee houses also became important hubs for intellectual life. One of the most famous Lviv interwar cafes was “Kawiarnia Szkocka” (Scottish). There, the mathematicians from Lviv School of Mathematics collaboratively discussed research problems, particularly in functional analysis and topology. Among them there were scholars of different ethnic background – S. Banach, H. Steinhaus, S. Ulam, F. Baranski and others. Stanislaw Ulam recounts that the tables of the café had marble tops, so they wrote in pencil – directly on the table surface or napkins during their discussions. To keep the results from being lost, Stefan Banach's wife presented them a large notebook that was used for putting down the problems and answers and eventually became known as the "Scottish Book". . Today the copy of this book can be found in a contemporary cafe that bears its historical name (at 27 Shevchenko Ave.).
We are currently at 8 Kotliarska Str. where the café “Sztuka” (“Art”) is situated. A coffee house of the same name existed in Lviv before WWI at 10 Teatralna Str., but the new one was opened in 2009 in a different location – a former Jewish store. The café owner decided to restore the pre-war hand-painted Yiddish and Polish advertisements on the façade. If you look around, you will notice that similar inscriptions became a marketing “trend” – even on the buildings where they initially did not exist. Various exhibitions, concerts and movie screenings are regularly held in the “Sztuka” cafe. One can find many artifacts of pre-war Lviv at “Sztuka”: old photos, candy boxes and coffee cans as well as posters and press in Polish, Ukrainian and Yiddish. This warm commercial space can also become a place to remember the multicultural past.
Why Sholem Aleichem?
Kotlarska, 1
Sholem Aleichem memorial plaque in Lviv, Urban Media Archive.
At the corner of Kotliarska and Shpytalna Str. one can notice a very special memorial plaque – the only one in Lviv that has a Yiddish text on it. It honors the house where the world-famous “father of Yiddish literature”, Sholem Aleichem spent 9 months (1905-1906). One might wonder, why in the city which was home to so many Yiddish writers (Deborah Vogel, Moishe Shimmel, Rachel Auerbach, Alexander Lizen to name but a few), there is a memory plaque to only one of them who has only spent a couple of months in Lviv?
Let us take a closer look at Sholem Aleichem. Since 1883, the author who used to write in Hebrew and Russian, began to write exclusively in Yiddish, strongly contributing to its literary recognition. Comparing to Hebrew, the “sacred language”, Yiddish was rather perceived as a vernacular jargon. Sholem Aleichem was one of the impassioned advocates of Yiddish as a national Jewish language, which, in his opinion, should be given the same status and respect as other modern European languages.
The phrase “Shalom Aleichem” literally means "peace be upon you". Writer’s real name was Solomon Rabinovich, he was born into the family of a merchant in Pereyaslav (nowadays Kyiv region). In 1876, after graduating from school, he spent three years tutoring a wealthy landowner's daughter, Olga Loev, who later became his wife. He served as crown rabbi in Lubny, worked as an entrepreneur and insurance agent. After witnessing the pogroms that swept through the south of Russian Empire in 1905, he decided to emigrate to America together with his family. This is how he found himself in Galicia, waiting for the papers from the Emigration Committee: at first in Brody and later in Lviv. He fondly remembers the capital of Galicia and his time here, e.g. in this quote from “Mottel, the Cantor’s Son”:
“Lvov, you see, is nothing like Brody. First, the city itself - clean, wide, beautiful! Of course, you can also find here streets, just like in Brody, which you can only cross in summer in deep galoshes and with your nose plugged. But in the centre, there is a park, where everyone is allowed to walk, even goats. Free country! (...)the reason why Lviv is better than Brody is because it lays further from the border but closer to America."
Apart from the memorial plaque (unveiled in 1989), there is a street and Jewish cultural society in Lviv, named after Sholem Aleichem. One of the reasons for such popularity, of course, is his world-wide recognition as the classic Yiddish author and playwright. Besides, Sholem Aleichem was also one of the few most published Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union. He was incorporated into the Soviet literary canon as the writer for “simple people”. On the one hand, his works were mainly presented according to the rigid class-deterministic Marxist scheme of the Yiddish literary development. On the other hand, his heritage was very important for Soviet Jews and the preservation of their identity. His commemoration in Lviv was the sign of the democratization of public sphere. Yet, as we can see, still much is needed to remember the Jewish history of the city – and particularly, the Yiddish writers who lived and worked here.
The Invisible Cemetery
Rappaporta, 2
Old Jewish cemetery in Lviv, 1910-12, Urban Media Archive
We are in front of one of the largest markets in central Lviv – the Krakivsky market. However, before WWII, the oldest Jewish cemetery in Lviv was situated here. Majer Balaban documented and described it in his works. He dates the cemetery back to the times of King Jagiello (14th-15th centuries) and mentions that a lot of prominent rabbis and leaders of Lviv’s Jewish community were buried here. The cemetery was closed officially on 22 August 1855 because of the epidemic threat. The ancient cemetery was destroyed by the Nazis and the gravestones were used to pave roads. Several years after the war, the communist authorities created a market that exists here until today.
A project to commemorate the cemetery – "Besojlem Memorial Park" " – was developed by the Israeli architect Ronit Lombrozo. It was the winning project of the open competition "Sites of Jewish history in Lviv”, organized by the Center for Urban History, Lviv City Council and the GIZ. The project involves fencing the open part of the cemetery (behind the former Jewish hospital). Two new gates will be connected by an alley. The central part of the memorial will be a place of meditation and remembrance with fragments of discovered tombstones.
First Jewish Museum
Sholem Aleichema (Bernsteina), 12
The inauguration of the Museum of Jewish Community in Lviv, 17 May 1934. "Chwila", Dodatek Ilustrowany from 27.05.1934
During our city walk we have explored both successful and failed attempts to commemorate Jewish past in Lviv. The building of the former Jewish Museum at 12 Sholem Aleichem Str. is another challenging case.
The years 1910-1939 was the time of great activity of various Jewish organizations, including those dealing with the preservation of Jewish cultural and historical heritage. Collecting Jewish religious and cultural artefacts became very popular. One of the reasons was the process of emancipation and acculturation, which, since the second half of the 19th century, had led to the emergence of a group of people who, following the example of non-Jewish élites, started to shape their private collections of Judaica. The most famous collectors of Jewish art in interwar Lviv were doctor Marek Reichenstein, historian Maximillian Goldstein and many others.
In 1925, the Board of Trustees for the protection of monuments of Jewish art was created by the Lviv Jewish religious community. This organization dealt with both the inventory of Jewish cultural monuments in Galicia and the restoration of matsevots (the tombstones on Jewish cemeteries). On 17 May 1934, the Jewish museum was officially opened in Lviv. It was located on the third floor of the community-owned building at Bernstein Str. (currently 12 Sholem Aleichem Str.). It was open every day (except Shabbat and important Jewish holidays) between 11am and 3pm and had free admission. The function of the custodian was performed by Ludwik Lille, a famous painter, art historian, literary critic, and collector. The permanent collection contained synagogue objects, dating back to the 17th century, Hanukkah lamps, models of ritual ceramics, faience products, patterned fabrics, drawings, watercolour paintings, and photos of architectural monuments and tombstones. Additionally, there was a hall of contemporary secular arts. The famous modernist interwar group “Artes” hold several exhibitions there. This society united the artists of various nationalities who worked in the areas of abstractionism, cubism, symbolism and surrealism in Lviv. The most famous members were Roman Selskyi, Margit Reich-Selska, Marek Włodarski (Henryk Streng), Ludwik Lille, Jerzy Janish, Tadeusz Wojciechowski and others. Some of their works are exhibited today at the Lviv Art Gallery.
Ludwik Lille, Self-portrait, 1930s. Source
After just five years of existence, the museum was closed by the Soviets in 1939, and the collection was dispersed among other local museums (Lviv Historical Museum, Lviv Art Gallery and the Museum of Arts and Crafts). Today the collection is kept in the funds of these museums and rarely exhibited. In the Soviet times, the building was used as the premises of the Medical University. In the 1990s and the early 2000s, the building hosted a number of Jewish cultural and youth organizations (B'nai B'rith "Leopolis", O. Schwartz International Center for Holocaust Research etc). However, today the building remains empty because of its alarmingly dilapidated state.
What is the future of the building and the collection of Lviv Jewish Museum? How can Lviv city administration, NGOs, Jewish organizations and ordinary citizens cooperate to save Jewish heritage from oblivion and further decay? What are the inclusive ways to commemorate difficult and complex history of interethnic relations? These are the open questions we would like to finish our virtual city walk with.
City Walk Authors
The city walk was prepared by the students of the "Summer School "Jewish History, Common Past and Heritage: Culture, Cities, Milieus" (July 11 – August 5, 2016), organized by the Center for Urban History in East-Central Europe.
The walk was held for public by its authors on August 5, 2016.
Agnieszka Kajczyk (Poland)
Elina Katz (Ukraine)
Oleksandr Pylypenko (Ukraine-Poland)
Viktoria Lykova (Ukraine)
Juliana Mikolutskaya (Belarus)
Agnieszka Witkowska-Krych (Poland)
Tutor, content editor: Anna Chebotariova (Center for Urban History)
All published materials are part of the collections of the Urban Media Archive and Lviv Interactive or taken from public sources for non-commercial use. All published material can not be partially or fully reproduced in any form without the prior permission of the publisher. The materials belong to the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe, authors, and copyright owners.
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