See paper "The Wolfsthal Family of Musicians: From Local Excellence to Global Influence"

Authorized Users with research interests in Husiatyn (Гусятин) and Drohobich (Дрого́бич)

Bibliography

Official Naming of Jews in the Austrian and German Empires

The 1781/82 Tolerance Edict of Emperor Joseph the IInd by which all Jews settled in both the Austrian and German Empires had to assume an official family name came into force progressively throughout the Empires, namely:
1782 Austria
1787 Galicia and Bukowina (Austria)
1797 West Galicia (Austria)
1805 Bohemia (Austria)
1807 Frankfort (Germany)
1808 Mannheim (Germany)
1809 Baden, Hesse and Lippe (Germany)
180445 Russia (Zar Nikolas I)
1812 Mecklenburg (Prussia)
1813 Bavaria (Germany)
1816 Kur-Hesse (Germany)
1821 Poland (part of Poland)
1822 Anhalt-Dessau (Germany)
1823 Saxon Duchies-Weimar (Germany)
1833 Posen (East-Prussia)
1828 Württemberg (Germany)
1828 Denmark (Denmark)
1833 Hesse (Germany)
1834 Saxony (Germany)
1845 Prussia (Prussia)
Source: The Origin of Jewish Family Names: Morphology and History, Nelly Weiss, 2002

Pogroms in Galicia

There were no pogroms in Galicia up until 1914, when the Russian army came; then there was 1919 Polish pogrom and finally 1941 Ukrainian pogrom or "Petliura days", which was the beginning of the Shoah.

Errors in Book of TB

(1) Musician Max confused with Football Max
(2) Wolfsthal brothers orchestra includes Max and Bernhard
(3) Emma's birth year - 1893 <> 1889 and employment in Sczeschin
The distorted data travels from one article to another as the authors do not check the references and primary sources:
Arnold is the brother of Maurycy, not the son (correction to the book listed in Yaroslav's mail of Jan 26).
Bronislaw is the son of Maurycy, not the son of Chune (correction to the dissertation of M Martyniuk).

Austro-Hungarian Army

Index of Infantry Regiments & Locations

Meaning of "recte" or "rechta" in Polish BR's from the 1800's

In the 1800s in Galicia, Austria Jews believed that marriage was a private, religious event, and most married rabbinically, not civilly. The
Austrian taxes on marriage, and the limitations of who could marry, exacerbated this. The government, in turn, did not recognize the rabbinical marriage. Births of children of rabbinical marriages were recorded as illegitimate and records often contained only the mother's information, or (depending on the town and year), if the father appeared, both parents were noted, but the birth record still recorded the child with the mother's surname.

With time, the surname used might be different from the "legitimate" birth registration. So German terms came to be used to describe the legal surname vs. the surname used.

"False" (often abbreviate f.) implies usage and means an individual might be using the father's surname but officially should be using the mother's surname due to lack of the required civil marriage. Example: Brown f. Cohen means the person used Cohen (father's surname) but Brown is the legal name (mother's surname).

"Recte" (often abbreviated r.) means "legally" or "correctly" or "corrected" and was used to correct the surname of an individual, sometimes following a civil marriage between the parents. Example: Brown r. Cohen means the person used Brown, but Cohen is the legal name. Less frequently, the term Recte was used with given names to signify aliases. For example, Max r. Majer Leib means the person was using the name Max in everyday usage, but he was really Majer Leib from his birth record.

"Vel" translates to "also known as." The resident was known by both surnames, maternal and paternal. If vel appears between two given names, this might signify the Jewish versus secular surname or nickname/kinnui, versus legal given name. Vel was used mostly with given names and false/recte with surnames.

-- (Source: Phyllis Kramer, JewishGen)

Marriages in the Shtetl

(1)
Years before Austria absorbed the territory that became Galicia, Austrian rulers instituted measures to restrict Jewish marriage. One measure was a high tax on recognized Jewish marriages, which was called the “bride tax.” Another measure was that only the oldest son could have a recognized marriage and there was a quota on the total number of Jewish marriages in a community. Recognized marriages were to be performed by Crown Rabbis appointed by and answerable to the Austrian government. These restrictions pertained to all Jews in the Austrian empire. Despite efforts to reduce the number of Jews in the empire, Jews continued to have traditional Jewish marriages because of the very nature of Jewish marriage law and ritual.

In 1772, when Austria claimed the part of Poland that became Galicia, most Jews living there were poor. Polish rulers had long imposed various occupational and societal restrictions on its Jewish residents, and Jews were burdened by heavy taxes. The fairly new Hasidic movement had taken hold in Galicia, particularly in the hundreds of small towns and rural areas. This development set the stage for a long struggle over the issue of marriage between the government and the Hasidic leadership. Rabbis saw marriage as strictly a Jewish affair and resisted the idea of a government-appointed Crown rabbi who could usurp their traditional role to perform this religious rite.

In 1782, Josef II enacted reforms that terminated many restrictions on Jews, including the quota and the restriction that enabled only the oldest son to marry. However, he retained the “bride tax” and the concept of a Crown Rabbi. Individuals appointed to this role of Crown Rabbi were not part of the Hasidic movement and, therefore, were generally seen by the people as alien to their beliefs. Marriage was a particular bone of contention because Josef’s mandate for universal civil marriage meant that only Crown Rabbis would be empowered to conduct those marriages. The Hasidic leaders counseled their congregants to resist the mandate for civil marriage, even threatening excommunication for those who complied with the law.

As a result of this situation, for the most part, the Jews of Galicia did not submit to the law requiring them to have civil marriages. Failure to do so meant that the children born to couples who had not complied with this mandate were deemed illegitimate.

Eventually, after the Jews were emancipated by the Emperor Franz Josef in 1869, the rate of civil marriage gradually increased in order to be eligible to benefit from access to a university education, to obtain a business license, purchase land, obtain passports to travel abroad, or other similar societal privileges. However, resistance to civil marriage in Galicia continued as a matter of principle among adherents of Hasidism

-- (Source: Wynne, Suzan R. The Galitizianers: the Jews of Galicia1772-1918; May 2006 Wheatmark)

(2)
Many Jews had little use for their assigned surnames in the 19th century. Thus, even though they had assigned surnames which the government used to assess taxes, conscript men into the army, etc., in terms of everyday usage Jews really didn’t care about their surnames. In addition, civil marriage was largely ignored by many Jews, as it generally was expensive. Jews tended to have religious marriages and only got civilly married if they or their children for some reason needed it. This thus lead to many civil marriages long after a couple had their children, something which might seem strange at first glance, but you need to realize thati n most cases these people did get married (religiously) before they had children, they were just not married from the perspective of the state.

So what happened if your parents did not have a civil marriage? In some cases it meant you would need to take your mother’s maiden name as your surname. That’s because even if your father was listed on your birth certificate, he was not legally married to your mother, and thus you needed to take on your mother’s last name for legal purposes. If you parents were legally married at a later date, a note could be written on your birth certificate in the town records showing that your parents were legally married, and thus declaring you as legitimate (and able to take your father’s name).

In the late 19th and early 20th century, civil marriage became easier for Jews, and thus around this time if you look at marriage records you will see a large number of marriages that seem to be relatively old people. In many cases these married couples already had children and grandchildren. As their children and grandchildren became more mobile and wanted to travel out of the small towns they had been in, they needed travel documents, and in some cases this was only made possible if their older parents got married (at least if they wanted to get travel documents with their father’s surname instead of their mothers).

-- (Source: Trauring, Philip, Religious marriages, civil marriages and surnames from mothers)

(3)
As many Galician researchers know, to record a marriage as a civil marriage recognized by the Austrian or Polish government, the marriage must be officiated by an authorized Rabbi. Most Jews in 19th century Galicia had weddings officiated by a Rabbi not authorized by the government.

-- (Source: Mark Halpern, JewishGen Message Board)

Naming after an Ancestor

A core tradition, pretty much throughout the Ashkenazi population in Galicia and elsewhere, was to name a child after a deceased relative and it applied to both males and females. Like all traditions it was widely followed but not universally. This tradition can be used in reverse for research purposes but with some
care. Explanation follows.

If grandpa Abraham Isaac had four children and he died while they were still building their families, there could be four grandchildren named Abraham Isaac. In addition, if he died while his wife was pregnant with a male child, the child might also be named Abraham Isaac. Each of those grandchildren could eventually have multiple grandchildren named Abraham Isaac. While Jews tended to move around more than the gentile peasants, many did live in the same town so first and second cousins, etc., could be found living near each other. As a result it is possible that an older Abraham Isaac could be, not a grandfather, but a great uncle or even a cousin twice removed. Care and additional confirmatory research is always advisable.

History

Krakow, 1930s/1940s

SHORT:
Jews had resided in Krakow since early 13th century. At the outbreak of war in 1939, near 60,000 Jews lived there. Krakow was occupied on September 6th 1939 and anti-Semitic measures were immediately enacted. A Judenrat was formed by late November and, during December, Jewish properties and synagogues were looted and burnt. In March 1941, Krakow’s Jews were moved and sealed into the Podgorze ghetto across the river. These inhabitants were then joined by thousands of other Jews from elsewhere resulting in poor sanitation and overcrowding with 4-5 people to a room. 6,000 Jews were deported to Belzec between May 28th and June 8th 1942. 7,000 more were sent to Belzec in mid-October and 600 were shot during the round-up. Of the remainder left in the ghetto, those that could work were sent to Plaszow. Those that couldn’t were also sent to their deaths. Over five centuries of Jewish life was wiped away by these repeated deportations and ultimately the ghetto’s liquidation in March 1943. Only a few thousands of Krakow Jews survived the Holocaust.

LONG:
The first recorded presence of Jews residing in Krakow dates from the early 13th century. 55,515 Krakow residents identified themselves as Jews in the Polish census of 1931; on the eve of the war some 56,000 Jews resided in Krakow, almost one-quarter of a total population of about 250,000. By November 1939, the Jewish population of Krakow had grown to approximately 70,000. This increase reflected the concentration of Jews who fled or were driven from the countryside into the city and its suburbs, and the arrival of deported Jews.

Upon the German invasion of Poland, the German army occupied Krakow in the first week of September 1939. The German military authorities initiated immediate measures aimed at isolating, exploiting and persecuting the Jews of the city. The German occupation authorities required Jews in the city of Krakow and the surrounding areas to report for forced labor (October 1939); form a Jewish Council (November 1939); identify themselves by means of a white armband with a blue Star of David, worn on the outer clothing (December 1939); register their property (January 1940-March 1940); and to be concentrated in ghettos (September 1940-March 1941).

In May 1940, the Germans began to expel Jews from Krakow to the neighboring countryside. By March 1941, the SS and police had expelled more than 55,000 Jews; about 15,000 Jews remained in Krakow.

In early March 1941, the Germans ordered the establishment of a ghetto, to be situated in Podgorze, a southern suburb of Krakow, rather than in Kazimierz, the traditional Jewish quarter of the city. By March 21, 1941, the Germans had concentrated the remaining Jews of Krakow and thousands of Jews from other towns in the ghetto. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Jews lived within the Krakow ghetto boundaries.

Between June 1941 and February 1943, the Nazis established nine forced-labor camps for Jews in the Plaszow suburb of Krakow. The Germans deployed Jewish forced laborers on construction projects as well, building or repairing bridges, rail track, and an indoor sports complex.

In spring 1942, the Germans started to deport Krakow Jews to the Belzec killing center. On June 1 and 6, 1942, the German SS and police deported up to 7,000 Jews via Plaszow, where the camp authorities assisted in the murder of approximately 1,000, to Belzec. On October 28, 1942, the Germans deported nearly half of the remaining Jews in the ghetto, approximately 6,000, to Belzec. During the operation the SS and police shot approximately 600 Jews, half of them children, in the ghetto.

On March 13-14, 1943, the SS and police liquidates the Krakow ghetto, shooting some 2,000 Jews. The SS transferred another 2,000 Jews—those capable of work and the surviving members of the Jewish Council and the Jewish police force - to the Plaszow forced-labor camp. The rest of the Jews, approximately 3,000, were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in two transports, arriving on March 13 and March 16. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the camp authorities selected 549 persons from the two transports (499 men and 50 women) to be registered as prisoners. They murdered the others, approximately 2,450 people, in the gas chambers.

After the revolts of Jewish prisoners in the Warsaw ghetto (April-May 1943), Treblinka (August 1943), the Bialystok ghetto (August 1943), and Sobibor (October 1943), the SS guards and their Trawniki-trained auxiliaries murdered virtually all of the remaining prisoners in the Plaszow forced-labor camp between September and December 1943 in several mass shooting operations. The number of Jews murdered by the SS in these shootings is unknown; it may have been up to 9,000. SS and police officials deported the survivors to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

In January 1944, the Nazis converted the Plaszow forced-labor camp into a concentration camp. The SS filled the now virtually empty camp with incarcerated Jewish forced laborers from various smaller forced-labor camps in Krakow and Radom Districts and, later in the spring, with Jews deported from Hungary. In September 1944, there were still 2,200 Jews in Plaszow. The SS evacuated at least 1,500 of them to Gross-Rosen concentration camp on October 15. As of the beginning of 1945, 636 prisoners remained at Plaszow; on January 14, 1945, two days after the Soviet offensive pushed the Germans out of their positions on the west bank of the Vistula River, the SS evacuated these last prisoners on foot to Auschwitz.

After the war, some 4,282 Jews resurfaced in Krakow. By the early 1990s, only a few hundred Jews remained.

Source: USHMM.

Other sources:
Jewish Virtual Library
Jewish Families of Krakow (Geni project)
Ayelet Gordin-Levitan's Website

Lwow, 1930s/1940s

In the 1930s, Lwow was inhabited by 312 thousand people, including some 157 thousand Poles, 109 thousand Jews and 50 thousand Ukrainians. According to the official census data from 9 December 1933, Lwow was inhabited by ca. 99,595 Jews. However, other estimates give a far higher number. On 22 December 1939, Red Army troops entered Lwow . Since that December, mass arrests and deportations into the USSR were carried out in the area, involving mainly Polish and Jewish intelligentsia. The last troop of the Soviet army left Lwow on the night of 28/29 June 1941, and on 30 June, at around 11:00 a.m., the Germans entered the city together with the Ukrainian battalion Nachtigall. Between 30 June and 3 July, Lwow witnessed exceptionally bloody and cruel fighting, which resulted in the killing of ca. three thousand people, mainly Poles and Jews.

The Germans established two camps in Lwow . One of them was situated in Czwartaki Street which was closed down in November 1943. The other camp was located at 134 Janowska street and it operated until the Germans left Lwow . In this camp alone, almost 200 thousand people, almost all of whom were Jews, lost their lives. The camp at 134 Janowska Street served as a temporary camp (Durchgangslager), and an extermination camp for the Jews from Lwow and those from the local cities and towns of the so-called District of Galicia.
More information: The Janowska concentration camp: What we know and don't know

Stanislawow Ghetto

Stanisławów Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto established in 1941 by the SS in Stanislawow (now Ivano-Frankivsk) in Western Ukraine.

Unlike the other ghettos, in the region of Stanislawów the local German administration did not wait until the killing centers had been established. On 12 October 1941 during the so-called Bloody Sunday, some 10,000–12,000 Jews were shot into mass graves at the Jewish cemetery, by the German uniformed SS-men and Order Police battalions together with the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police. Two months after that, the ghetto was established officially for the 20,000 Jews still remaining, and sealed off with walls on 20 December 1941. Over a year later, in February 1943, the Ghetto was officially closed, when no more Jews were held in it.

See description in the USHMM Encyclopedia.
See map.

Husiatyn (Ukrainian: Гусятин)

Husiatyn is an urban-type settlement in Chortkiv Raion, Ternopil Oblast (province) of western Ukraine, located on the west bank of the Zbruch River. This river formed the old boundary between Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century, and the boundary between the Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union during the inter-war period of the twentieth century.

Husiatyn was first mentioned in documents in 1559, as a part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It came under Austrian rule in 1772 and attached to the Austrian region of Galicia. It remained a county centre under Austrian rule until the collapse of Austria-Hungary.

Jews have lived in Husiatyn since 1577. At the end of the 16th century, the community has erected a large and impressive fortress-like synagogue which remains standing to this day. After the partition of Poland in 1772, the Jewish community was also divided. Most of the Jews remained in the Austrian sector. The minority were in the Russian sector on the eastern bank of the Zbrucz river. When a Hasidic court was established in 1861 the town became one of the important centers of Galician Hasidism, and experienced some economical growth. At the end of the 19th century there were 4,200 Jews in Husiatyn , 66% of the population, but before World War I there were 3,300 Jews, 56% of the population.

The effect of World War I was devastating for the Jewish community of Husiatyn. On August 9, 1914 the Russian army entered Husiatyn and rioted against the Jews, looting their houses and setting most of the town's houses on fire. About 400 Jewish families succeeded in leaving before the Russians arrived. The others, about 600 families, dispersed in different towns and villages in the area. In 1915 there was an epidemic of typhoid fever which caused many deaths. On June 13, 1915 the Russian occupying authorities ordered the Jews (about 1,500 souls) to leave within 24 hours, and they settled in nearby Kopyczynce. When the Russian army retreated in 1916 the remaining Jews were expelled to the region of Kiev. During the period of the western Ukrainian republic (November 1918 - May 1919) the few remaining Jews in Husiatyn were robbed by bands of peasants. After World War I the means of livelihood in Husiatyn dwindled because of its proximity to the border and the competition from the Ukrainian cooperatives. The Hasidic court also left the town. In 1920 the Bolshevik authorities nationalized the property of the Jewish merchants and shopkeepers. In 1921 368 Jews were left in Husiatyn , this was also their number in 1931. Zionist activities began early in the 20th century and continued until the eve of World War II. At that time there were 1,800 Jews in Husiatyn.

The eruption of World War II dealt the second and final blow to the Jews of Husiatyn. In 1939, as a result of the pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, Husiatyn came under Soviet rule. Private trading was repressed almost completely. Private enterprise commerce was banned and the Jews were able only work in the municipal soviet administration and in the marketing networks. After the German attack on the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941), some Jews escaped with the retreating Soviet army. On July 6, 1941 the town was occupied by the Germans. Local Ukrainians robbed and killed Jews. In July 1941 the Germans and the Ukrainians killed 200 Jews. The remaining Jews were fined by the German authorities and conscripted to forced-labor. In the winter of 1941-42 many Jews died of disease and starvation. In March 1942 the surviving Jews of Husiatyn were deported to Kopyczynce and Probuzna where they shared the fate of the local Jews.

See Wikipedia.

Caserne Dossin (Malines-Mechelen) Camp, Belgium

The Mechelen transit camp (SS-Sammellager Mecheln) was a detention and deportation camp established on July 27, 1942 in the former Dossin military casern in the city of Mechelen (French: Malines) in the city of Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium. The camp was located halfway between Brussels and Antwerp, where most of the 70,000 Jews in Belgium lived. The camp served the Nazis during their occupation of Belgium, and helped to facilitate their plans to systematically exterminate the Jewish population. It bordered a railway line, was the largest deportation hub for trains leaving Belgium for Auschwitz concentration camp and for several forced labor camps in Upper Silesia.

Between August 4, 1942 and July 31, 1944, the Nazis deported over 25,000 Jews and 352 Sinti and Roma in 32 transports. These were divided into 27 large transports comprising 500 to 1,700 Jews each and 5 smaller transports, with usually less than 100 deportees.

Nowy Sacz

Nowy Sącz is a city in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship of southern Poland. It is the district capital of Nowy Sącz County as a separate administrative unit, and one of the oldest cities in the Lesser Poland region.

During the invasion of Poland starting World War II, Nowy Sącz was occupied by Nazi Germany on 6 September 1939.

The regional Jewish community numbered about 25,000 before World War II, and nearly a third of the town's population was Jewish; ninety per cent of them died or did not return. The Nowy Sącz Ghetto for around 20,000 Jewish people was established by the German authorities near the castle. Its inhabitants were deported aboard Holocaust trains to Belzec extermination camp over three days in August 1942 and murdered. Across the river in the Jewish Cemetery, 300–500 Polish people were executed for their participation in the sheltering of Jews. The Red Army fought its way into the city on 20 January 1945. At war's end, about 60% of the city had been destroyed.

See Sanz Book by Mahler.

Lodz

See this.

Hungary

In 1942–1943, the Hungarian government recognized that Germany would likely lose the war. So they tried to negotiate a separate armistice for Hungary with the western Allies. To prevent these efforts, German forces occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944. Jews were packed into ghettos. In mid-May 1944, the Hungarian authorities, in coordination with the German Security Police, began to systematically deport the Hungarian Jews. In less than two months, nearly 440,000 Jews were deported from Hungary. Most were deported to Auschwitz. Thousands were also sent to the border with Austria to be used for digging fortification trenches.

Of approximately 825,000 Jews living in Hungary in 1941, about 63,000 died or were killed prior to the German occupation of March 1944. Under German occupation, just over 500,000 died from mistreatment or were murdered. Soviet troops liberated Hungary in April 1945.

Vienna

Just one day after the Anschluss in March 1938, Jews were being harassed in Vienna. They were driven through the streets of Vienna, their homes and shops were plundered and the process of Aryanisation began. These events reached their climax in the Kristallnacht pogrom of 9–10 November 1938. All synagogues and prayer houses in Vienna were destroyed – the Stadttempel was the sole survivor because its location in a residential area prevented it from being burned down. Most Jewish shops were plundered and then closed down; over 6000 Jews were arrested in this one night, the majority were deported to the Dachau concentration camp in the following days. The Nuremberg Laws applied in Austria from May 1938; they were reinforced with innumerable anti-semitic decrees. Jews were gradually robbed of their freedoms, were blocked from almost all professions, were shut out of schools and universities, and were forced to wear the Yellow badge.

The Nazis dissolved Jewish organizations and institutions, hoping to force Jews to emigrate. Their plans succeeded – by the end of 1941, 130,000 Jews had left Vienna, 30,000 of whom went to the USA. They left behind all of their property, but were forced to pay the Reich Flight Tax, a tax on all émigrés from the Third Reich; some received financial support from international aid organizations so that they could pay this tax. Following the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, where the Nazis resolved to completely annihilate the Jewish population, the majority of the Jews who had stayed in Vienna became victims of the Holocaust. Of the more than 65,000 Viennese Jews who were deported to concentration camps, only a few more than 2000 survived.

Poor Economical Conditions in Galicia

In 1906, President Roosevelt asked an Immigration Judge called Philip Cowen to travel on an undercover mission to Russia, to study Jewish persecution and find out the roots for the mass migration of Russian Jews to America. Cowen spent a short period in Galicia, and his report provided a revealing description of the poor economical conditions of the Jews in Galicia and the root causes for these conditions.

(1)
"Austrian Poland appears to be discriminated against commercially, as I was informed, by a preferential railroad rate whereby goods may be transported easterly from the old manufacturing centers of Austro-Hungary in the west at a considerable lower rate than that charged for sending good from Galicia to the Western sections of the empire. The fact that this is so, it would appear, cripples all industry, and so makes a country where agriculture is but imperfectly carried on, unable to better its condition by the pursuit of other industries. This affects the population of Austrian Poland as a whole."
(2)
"Taking the Jewish communityby itself, we find another reason: The practice of their religion in all the minutiae of their customs characteristics of the Galicians, is a serious obstacle to their entering employments where work must be done between stated hours daily for six days in the week. When he leaves home the Galician Jew may not object to working on his Sabbath day and to adapting his religious observances to his environment and supporting the need of his family; but in the land of his birth, he cannot be persuaded to do so, nor would he dare do so even though the alternative be to starve, and it is for this reason, that we find so much misery among them. For most of them it is ignoble to engage in worldly pursuits that interfere with religious study; labor with the hands is demeaning, and the woman of the house deem it a privilege so that the men, to whom that privilege is reserved, may devote themselves to the study of the sacred law."

Source: Cowen Report - European Investigation Entry No. 9; File No. 51411/056; 1906-1907, Records of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, Record Group 85; National Archives Building, Washington (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/602984).

Cemetery Information

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husiatyn

Husiatyn Cemetery Information from JewishGen Member.
Husiatyn is in the Ternopil Oblast. The fortress-style synagogue ruin is located between Hwy T2002 & vul. Nalivaykoand and is reminiscent of the synagogue in Zamosc (Poland). The building had been for many years a museum, but that moved out and for the last handful of years the building has been vacant. Windows on the ground level were broken and there was graffiti on all four sides today. The synagogue is an outstanding and imposing structure in a central spot in the city that can be seen as one approaches the town, on the other side of the river. By comparison, there is nothing left of the Jewish cemetery in Husiatyn. During Soviet times an ugly high-rise apartment building was constructed over it. Not a single headstone remains except for three modern tombs for the Friedman family (associated with Ruzhiner dynasty of the Hassidic movement) located just outside the entrance. It is a strange site, fenced yet within a few feet of the main door to the building. The apartment building on the cemetery site is located at vul 5 Ternopilska, covering an area that stretches almost parallel to vul Ternopilska from the southeast to the northwest to a steep slope. Later that day we visited a pig farm in nearby Chabarivka, where Jewish headstones are visible in the foundation of the Soviet farm collective building ruin likely originally from the Husiatyn cemetery. GPS coordinates for these headstones: 49.078333, 26.137222.

Kopychyntsi

Kopychyntsi Cemetery Information from JewishGen Member.
Kopychyntsi is the Ternopil Oblast. I visited in 2017 with family and a photographer friend. Using the 1859 cadastral map from Gesher Galicia, we found the synagogue on the back of the rynek, formerly a bus station, today cut into a handful of shops including a plumbing supply and cafe. From there we walked the rynek and some of the back streets. The area has few prewar surviving buildings, but there were some, and we were on the hunt for original door frames with mezuzah traces. None were found. However, in the course of walking, thanks to a Facebook message from a friend, we located the prewar Jewish gmina (community building). Now empty and in very poor condition, the exterior matched almost perfectly the historic photo Taras sent me. After, we went in search of the two Jewish cemeteries of Kopychyntsi. The "old" cemetery is today completely built over by a school complex; we found zero traces that this site was once a cemetery. The site is located behind the Mary Church and Shevchenko monument. The "new" Jewish cemetery is at today's vul. Ivana Mazepy, between vul Lysenko & vul. Korotkaya, but private houses and gardens now completely cover the site; there are zero signs that a cemetery was once existed here. Gone and forgotten. These were the words that came to mind as we stood in the middle of the street in this quiet residential area surrounded by tidy gardens and barking dogs. We all felt quite depressed.

Obertyn Cemetery Information from JewishGen Member (Rod).
The cemetery was destroyed and the headstones were used for local building projects and roads.
A local Ukrainian businessman, Bogdan Stanislawski, bought the adjacent property and cemetery property. On the adjacent property stood an old barn whose foundation was constructed from the headstones. Mr. Stanislawski had the barn dismantled and moved the headstones to a memorial row along the cemetery edge. Jonathan Shaffer has wonderful pictures of this memorial on his website
There were not many fully intact headstones-- just pieces, as they had been used as foundation for the grain warehouse. Arrival instructions: In the center of town, there is a restaurant (owned by Mr. Stanislaski) called Zamok Zlaty. It is a very prominent building. Across the road and slightly south to the north is a small side road: Vulytsya Halana. You can see it on google maps. When the road (dirt) splits, bear to the left and keep walking past a number of houses. The cemetery and the memorial wall will be directly ahead adjacent to a new large warehouse. I tried to duplicate the path on google earth but it is not exactly clear.
Online, this photo shows the pile of stones retrieved from the barn before they were neatly placed along the wall.
Mr. Stanislawski lives in Kolomea. He only speaks Ukrainian so if you are not conversant in that language you will need a translator.

More: Jewish Families of Kopychyntsi (Ukraine)

Krakow Cemetery Information.
The Old Jewish Cemetery of Kraków (Polish: Stary cmentarz żydowski w Krakowie), more commonly known as the Remah Cemetery, was established in the years 1535–1551, and is one of the oldest existing Jewish cemeteries in Poland. It is situated at 40 Szeroka st. in the Kazimierz district of Kraków, beside the 16th-century Remah Synagogue. The cemetery was closed in around 1850; the nearby New Jewish Cemetery at 55 Miodowa Street then became the new burial ground for the city's Jews. During the German occupation of Poland, the Nazis destroyed the site by tearing down walls and hauling away tombstones to be used as paving stones in the camps, or selling them for profit. The cemetery has undergone a series of post-war restorations and original tombstones unearthed as paving stones have been returned and re-erected.

The New Jewish Cemetery (Polish: Nowy cmentarz żydowski w Krakowie) is a historic necropolis situated on 55 Miodowa Street in Kraków, Poland. Located in the former Jewish neighborhood of Kazimierz. The New Jewish Cemetery on Miodowa st. was founded in 1800 on grounds purchased by the Jewish Qahal from the Augustinians, and enlarged in 1836 with additional land purchased from the monks. From 1932 on, burials were directed to a new plot bought in 1926 by the Qahal along Abrahama st. and the one at nearby Jerozolimska st. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland in World War II, the New Cemetery was desecrated and the Germans used the headstones as construction material for paving the road to the Plaszow camp. After the war, many tombstones were recovered from the camp site and were returned to the New Cemetery, but not to their original locations. In the years that have since passed, age and weather have taken their toll on some of the stones; other have toppled or have been pushed over. The two other cemeteries at Abrahama st. and Jerozolimska st. formed the site of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp during the Holocaust and no longer exist.

Sources and more information: Old Jewish Cemetery, New Jewish Cemetery.