Pinkas HaKehillot — Boryslaw Entry

Source: Yad Vashem, Pinkas HaKehillot Polin (Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland), Boryslaw entry. Hebrew original OCR-translated to English. Drohobycz district, Lwów province.

Population Figures

YearTotal populationJews
18809,3187,363
189010,4247,752
190010,6905,950
191012,7675,753
192131,16610,149 (including suburbs of Tustanowice and Mraźnica)
193141,49611,996
1939(?)approx. 13,000
1941(?)approx. 14,000

The Jewish Settlement: Beginnings to 1919

Until the 1840s, Borysław was a village at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains. After ozokerite (earth-wax) and petroleum were discovered in and around the town, the settlement developed rapidly, and its Jewish population grew especially. In the second half of the 19th century, oil refining began. Borysław became the center of oil and oil products in the Austrian Empire. In the period between the two world wars, Borysław and its immediate vicinity supplied about 75% of Poland's oil consumption. In those same years, the extraction of natural gas also began, along with its use for industrial and domestic purposes. Between 1939–1941, and after the German occupation, in 1944, the Soviets worked to increase oil extraction in Borysław and to turn it into an important industrial center.

At the beginning of the 19th century there was a small Jewish community in the village of Borysław. Until 1860, Jews from surrounding settlements would come to Borysław to work in the extraction of ozokerite and oil, but most did not settle in the place permanently. By the end of the 1860s there was already a permanent community in Borysław with a central synagogue and several study houses (batei midrash). However, the Jewish community in Borysław was not independent but was tied to the community council of Drohobycz. As the settlement grew in numbers and in economic importance, the Jews of Borysław made efforts to become an independent community. In 1908 they petitioned the Austrian authorities to recognize them as a separate community, but owing to the vigorous protest of the Drohobycz community council, the request was rejected.

Finally, on 18 April 1928, the Polish authorities gave their consent to establish an independent community in Borysław. The Jews of Borysław had laid the foundations for independent communal life already at the end of the 19th century. In 1886 a Jewish cemetery was consecrated in the town, on a plot donated by the Lindenbaum family, which was expanded in 1913.

The Jews were among the pioneers of the oil industry in Borysław. The first attempts to extract oil in the Borysław area were made in the 1820s by the Jew Hecker, but without practical results. A few years later, Abraham Schreiner, a Jew from Borysław, also worked toward the industrial exploitation of the natural resources around the town. He was a producer of wagon-grease, and in the course of producing the grease from crude oil he arrived at the principle of oil refining. The liquids that Schreiner distilled from the oil were brought to a Polish pharmacist in Lwów, Łukasiewicz, who examined them and perfected the oil-refining process. Following this discovery, oil refineries were established in 1858 in Borysław and in Drohobycz, and this was a turning point in the development of the oil industry in the region.

Until 1880, about 2,500 Jewish men and about 500 Jewish women were employed in the oil industry in Borysław, but most of them did not reside in the town permanently. These were Jews of Drohobycz, Bolechów, Skole and other settlements in the area, who would return to their places of residence.

In the 1860s and 1870s, the extraction of oil, its refining, and the extraction and processing of ozokerite in Borysław and its immediate vicinity were largely in Jewish hands. This development also led to a great increase in the number of Jews employed in drilling oil wells and in transporting the mined ozokerite. Jews mainly served as supervisors at the plants and the drilling sites. During that period a large group of Jews also grew, who worked as cashiers or paymasters at all the oil enterprises and were responsible for making the payments to the thousands of wage laborers who came to Borysław from the whole surrounding area. These workers, who were called kasirers, had a study house of their own called the "Kasirer Beit Midrash," which existed until 1914.

In the late 1890s and the beginning of the 20th century, changes occurred in the production methods and in the ownership of the oil fields. The Vienna "Länderbank" and one of the central banks in Galicia bought up small plots of land on which oil wells were located and dispossessed their owners. Modern production methods were also introduced, using steam and electricity. The small producers could not withstand the competition and were forced to sell their assets. As a result of these changes, Jewish workers were dispossessed of their work, and broad strata of the Borysław community fell into a severe economic crisis. In 1899, 700 Jews were dismissed from their work.

In order to assist the Jewish families who had been economically impoverished by this crisis, relief committees were established in all the surrounding communities. The central Jewish organizations — ICA (the Jewish Colonization Association), the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and the "Galizischer Hilfsverein" — also extended special aid to the Jews of Borysław at that time. In 1898 Baroness Hirsch donated a large sum to support 240 Jewish families in the town. Following the crisis, the flow of emigration from Borysław to the United States increased.

Occupations of Borysław Jewish men (by marriages, 1880–1918)

OccupationPercentage
Liberal and technical professions2.9%
Managers and factory owners15.5%
Clerks / officials4.4%
Merchants and brokers42.4%
Craft and industrial workers9.1%
Unskilled laborers12.2%
Services13.5%

In 1887 the first "Hovevei Zion" society was founded in Borysław, and shortly after its founding it had 112 members. Alongside various Zionist organizations, a library and reading hall were established. In 1897 a Bikur Cholim (visiting-the-sick) society operated there. In 1890 a Jewish public elementary school was founded by the Vienna Alliance Israélite Universelle, with 353 pupils. In 1910 a modern Hebrew school was inaugurated in the town, with about 300 pupils enrolling.

After the First World War broke out and the Russian army advanced westward at the end of August 1914, hundreds of Jews fled the town. During the period of Russian occupation, from September 1914 until June 1915, the Jewish population suffered physical assaults by the soldiers and economic harassment. With the return of the Austrians, some of the Jewish refugees returned to Borysław as well.

Between the Two World Wars

The First World War led to a slowing of economic activity in the town and deepened the economic crisis among the Jews. In 1919, about 40% of the community members were in need of kimcha de'pischa (Passover charity). At the beginning of the 1920s, public kitchens were established that distributed hundreds of meals a day.

In 1921 the Jewish wage workers were about 18% of all the wage workers in the town — 16.4% among the workers in the oil plants. In 1921 there were 1,218 Jewish workers in the oil industry.

Occupations of Borysław Jewish men (by marriages, 1919–1935)

OccupationPercentage
Liberal and technical professions3.9%
Managers and factory owners16.2%
Merchants and brokers38.4%
Craft and industrial workers16.8%
Unskilled laborers22.3%
Services2.4%

Wholesale and retail commerce in Borysław was, for the most part, in Jewish hands, although the Jewish merchants were in fierce competition with the Polish economic elements, who enjoyed support and preferential credit from the authorities. The body of Jewish merchants in the years 1919–1939 was organized in 3 associations. In 1929 a "Cooperative Credit Bank" was founded, which assisted the merchants.

However, all of the aforementioned means of aid and mutual aid eased the situation of the Jews of Borysław only slightly. Unemployment, especially in the 1930s, encompassed many hundreds of breadwinners. In 1931 there were Jews in the town who attacked wagons that carried bread to the shops. The Jews were discriminated against by the municipality in the matter of their employment in relief works. Out of 1,200 people employed in public works in 1936, only 60 of them were Jews.

In the 1930s, manifestations of open antisemitism, bordering on pogroms, intensified against the Jews of Borysław. Attacks multiplied on Jewish merchants who visited the surrounding villages on business. In 1936 a wave of assemblies organized by the Endeks (National Democrats) swept through, accompanied by acts of violence. The Jews prepared to repel these attacks, and the young among them responded with force to these assaults.

Only on 8 April 1928 did the Polish authorities approve the establishment of an independent community in Borysław. In the elections to the community council in 1930, the various Zionist streams won 10 of the 12 seats. In the 1934 elections, Leon Schützmann was elected chairman of the council and Eliyahu Klinghofer his deputy. Leon Schützmann held this position until the outbreak of the Second World War.

The Second World War

A few days after the war broke out, in September 1939, masses of refugees from western Poland, fleeing the advancing Germans, began flowing through Borysław in the direction of the Romanian border. Among the refugees were many Jews, and the local community extended aid to those who decided, for the time being, to remain in the town.

On 12 September 1939, units of the German army reached Borysław, and the Jewish population became a target for their persecutions. German soldiers seized Jews for labor, abused them, and looted Jewish property. Encouraged by the presence of the Germans, the local Ukrainian nationalists also began to organize riots against the Jews. On the eve of Yom Kippur, which fell on 22 September 1939, reports reached the Jews of Ukrainian peasants from the surrounding villages organizing to carry out a pogrom against the Jews of Borysław. It is believed that only the appearance of Red Army units at the conclusion of Yom Kippur prevented these planned riots. Two days after Yom Kippur the Germans left the town, and the period of Soviet rule began.

The Jewish population received the Soviets with feelings of relief, since this put an end to the terrors of the Nazi occupation. As part of the nationalization policy, oil wells, refineries and other Jewish-owned plants were nationalized. The community institutions ceased to function, and the Jewish parties were dispersed. In the spring of 1940, Jewish public activists and activists of the Zionist parties and of the Bund were arrested and exiled into the interior of the Soviet Union. Among the exiles was also Leon Schützmann, the former chairman of the community council and a local Zionist leader.

When the war between Germany and the Soviet Union broke out on 22 June 1941, young Jews were called up to the Red Army; but owing to the rapid collapse of the front and the approach of the Germans, only some of them were conscripted and managed to retreat eastward.

German Occupation — July 1941

The town was captured by the Germans on 1 July 1941. That same day, the bodies of prisoners who had been murdered before the retreat were discovered in the building of the Soviet police. The Ukrainians claimed that the Jews had collaborated with the Soviet government and that they must therefore be avenged for the murder of the prisoners. The following day, the Ukrainian peasants from the area gathered in the town together with the local Ukrainians, joined by groups from among the Polish population. These, with the active assistance of the German soldiers, brutally murdered about 300 Jews in the streets of the town and wounded many dozens. In addition, the rioters broke into Jewish homes and looted property.

A few days after the pogrom, the Judenrat was established. It was headed by Michael Herz, who had not been involved in public life before the war. In its early days, the Judenrat dealt with supplying people for forced labor, with distributing the meager food rations allotted to the Jewish population, with collecting contributions imposed on the community, and with organizing material aid for the needy.

In the months of August–October 1941, many hundreds of the Jews of Borysław were employed in forced labor, mainly in rebuilding the plants, bridges and roads that had been destroyed by the Soviets during their retreat. These labors were accompanied by acts of abuse.

On 29–30 November 1941, the first mass execution took place. The Germans and the Ukrainian policemen gathered up, according to a list prepared in advance by the local Ukrainians, about 1,500 Jews. These were taken to a forest near the town and executed by shooting beside pits that had been dug a few days before the massacre.

In the autumn of 1941, abductions to the labor camps in the area — at Popiele, Skole and Stryj — began. The winter of 1941–1942 struck the Jews of Borysław hard. Hunger and disease felled many of them. Hundreds were infected with spotted typhus.

The Aktionen — Deportations to Bełżec

In the spring of 1942, the Jews of Borysław initiated the establishment of various workshops, in order to secure permits that would afford a measure of immunity from deportation to the labor camps. Thus, for example, a number of large carpentry workshops were set up on Drohobyczka Street, which produced and supplied furniture to German officers who lived in the town.

At the end of July 1942, the members of the Judenrat were required to prepare lists in advance of a "transfer" of a large number of Jews from the town. The Germans no longer waited to receive the lists and launched the Aktion on 4 August 1942. The Germans and the Ukrainian policemen broke into the Jews' homes and took them out to the concentration ground near the railway station. By the conclusion of the Aktion on 6 August 1942, a total of about 5,000 people had been gathered up and sent to extermination at the Bełżec camp.

After the deportation, 2 separate ghettos were established in Borysław in two neighborhoods: Potok and Wisipi. In October 1942 there was another Aktion, and about 1,500 Jews were sent to Bełżec. After this Aktion the ghettos were sealed and leaving their bounds was forbidden.

In parallel with this, the Jewish workers employed in the oil industry were taken out of both parts of the ghetto and concentrated in a separate labor camp in the town. Most of them worked for the Karpathen Öl A.G. concern.

At the beginning of November 1942, an Aktion began in both parts of the ghetto, which continued without interruption for about 4 weeks. Groups of Jews were concentrated in the "Coloseum" cinema hall, where a selection was carried out; those fit for work were separated out, and the elderly, the women and the children were sent to extermination at Bełżec. At the conclusion of this Aktion, the number of victims in Borysław totaled about 2,000 Jews.

On 16–17 February 1943, about 600 Jews from the ghetto were executed by shooting in mass pits near the town's slaughterhouse. In March 1943, only groups of craftsmen, persons in professions essential to the German economy, and the remnants of their families, remained in the ghetto. These were concentrated in a few houses, and every morning they went out to their workplaces under heavy escort of Ukrainian policemen. In addition, there were still about 1,200 people in the labor camp in the town. From April 1943, executions of the remnant of the ghetto residents began on a regular basis, and the slaughter continued until the end of June 1943. At that time the ghetto was effectively liquidated. The last essential workers were transferred to the labor camp in the town.

Liquidation of the Labor Camp — April 1944

With the acceleration of the extermination process, and especially after the Aktion in August 1942, the Jews of Borysław intensified their efforts at rescue. Groups of young people and individuals tried to reach the Hungarian border in order to cross into that country, where, for the time being, the situation of the Jews was relatively comfortable. But most of them were caught on the way, following denunciations and surrenders by the peasants in the area.

The Jews also began to build hiding places in the ghetto itself, and mostly in the surrounding forests. The Jews who worked at the oil plants scattered near the forest exploited this work in order to dig bunkers and prepare stocks of food in them. Indeed, in the final stages of the ghetto's existence, and also after it was liquidated in June 1943, these people began to hide in the bunkers and to dwell in them on a permanent basis. Only liaisons, who saw to food and water, would go out to the town and to the labor camp where Jews still remained. But the Germans and the Ukrainians conducted a systematic and constant manhunt for those in hiding.

In Borysław there were manifestations of organization for resistance against the Nazis and their helpers among the people of the labor camp. One of the resistance cells was headed by L. Hoffmann. He was killed while attempting to strike, with his weapon, one of the camp's senior Germans. Among the groups that hid in the forests, too, there were Jews equipped with weapons, who used them against their pursuers.

In April 1944 the Germans liquidated the labor camp in the town, and on 13 April 1944 about 600 Jews were transferred to the Płaszów camp. In May and June, additional groups of the camp's people were evacuated from Borysław to Płaszów and to the Mauthausen camp. On 21 July 1944 the last group from the camp in Borysław was sent to Auschwitz.

Liberation — August 1944

The town was liberated by the Soviets on 7 August 1944, and about 200 survivors who emerged from their hiding places gathered in it. Within a few months, about 200 more Jews arrived in the town — from among those who had spent the war in the Soviet Union, as well as the survivors who returned from the Nazi camps. The remnant of the Jewry of Borysław now began to commemorate the memory of the victims; they fenced off the execution sites in the town and its surroundings, and searched for collaborators with the Germans from among the local population in order to bring them to justice. In 1945–1946, most of the community's survivors left the town and went out to Poland, and from there continued on their way to the Land of Israel or to other countries. In the 1950s and 1960s there were several hundred Jews in Borysław, but most were not natives of the place.

Sources

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