Obj. ID: 43338
Jewish Architecture Holocaust Memorial Plaque at the Great Synagogue in Horodenka, Ukraine
To the main object: Great Synagogue in Horodenka, Ukraine
Memorial Name
Меморіальна дошка жителям міста – євреям, які загинули від рук фашистів (2500 осіб)
Translation: Memorial plaque to the residents of the city - to the Jews, which perished at the hands of fascists (2500 people)
Who is Commemorated?
The 2,500 Jewish Victims of the Holocaust from Horodenka
Description
This memorial plaque is located on the wall of the Great Synagogue in Horodenka. There are white inscriptions in Hebrew, Ukrainian, English, and Yiddish on a black background.
On the right side of the plaque, there is an image of the yellow and red flame going up from a blue Magen David. The flames are made of the Hebrew letters comprising the first two words of the prayer Shema Israel.
Inscriptions
Above Magen David in Hebrew:
שמע ישראל
Translation: Listen, Israel!
The plaque is inscribed in Hebrew, Ukrainian, English, and Yiddish.
In Hebrew:
בית הכנסת הגדול של הקהילה היהודיתֹ
שהתקיימה בהורודנקה משנת 1742 עד 1941
בי״ד בכסלו תש״ב הובילו הנאצים מכאן 2,500 יהודים
מהורודנקה והסביבה למקום הירצחם בסיעמאקובצה.
יהי זכרם ברוך לעולמי עד.
Translation: The Great Synagogue of the Jewish community / which existed in Horodenka from the year of 1742 till 1941 / On Kislev 14, 5702, led the Nazis from here 2,500 Jews / from Horodenka and the vicinity to the place of murder in Siemakowce. / May their memory be blessed for all eternity.
In Ukrainian:
Велика синагога еврейськоі общини Городенки, що існувала
від 1742 до 1941 року.
З цього місця повели на жорстоку смерть від рук
фашистів половина еврейськоі общини - 2500 людей
Вічна памʼять святим жертвам.
Translation: The Great Synagogue of the Jewish community of Horodenka, which existed / from 1742 till 1941. / From this place took to the brutal death from the hands / of fascists a half of the Jewish community - 2,500 people / Eternal memory to the holy victims.
In English:
This is the site of the Great Synagogue
of the Jewish community that existed from 1742 till 1941.
Half of this community of Horodenka and it's
vicinity were taken from here by the Nazis
and murdered in Dec. 4. 1941.
May the memory of the Holocaust martyrs
be blessed forever.
In Yiddish:
די גרויסע שיל פון די יידישע קהילה פון הורודנקה
ועלכע האט עגסיסטירט פון 1742 ביז 1941
פון דאנען זענען פארטריבען געוארען 2,500 יידען
פון הורודנקה און די סביבה און דערהארגעט געווארען
אין סיעמאקובצה פון נאצי מערדערס אין י״ד כסל״ו, תש״ב.
יהי זכרם ברוך לעולמי עד.
Translation: The Great Synagogue of the Jewish community of Horodenka / which existed from 1742 till 1941 / From here, 2,500 Jews were banished / from Horodenka and the vicinity and were killed / in Siemakowce by Nazi murderers in Kislev 14, 5702. / May their memory be blessed for all eternity.
Commissioned by
Unknown
3 image(s)
sub-set tree:
In 1939, there were 3,750 Jews in Horodenka. Hungarian troops entered Horodenka in July of 1941, and German troops came in August of that year. Along with the local Jewish community, about 1,000 Hungarian Jews were also held in Horodenka [Solovka, p. 181].
On December 4, 1941, the Gestapo of Kolomea gathered about 2,600 Jews in the synagogue, brought them the next day to the forest near Siemakowce, and shot them there. On April 13, 1942, about 60 or 75 Jews were shot in Horodenka, and were buried in the cemetery. In 1942, the Jews from surrounding villages and Obertyn were brought to the Horodenka ghetto. Most of them were deported to Kolomea and the Bełżec killing center. About 80 Jews were sent to the Janowska Street labor camp in Lwów. Very few Jews from Horodenka survived the Holocaust [Solovka, p. 181, Encyclopedia, p. 780].
The first monument in Horodenka was erected on the mass grave near the Semakivtsi Village in Soviet period [Solovka, p. 462]. The monument had a short inscription in Ukrainian, which did not specify information about the events that took place there or the ethnicity of the victims. A plaque with information in four languages was bolted to the monument presumably in the 1990s.
This Memorial Plaque was installed in 1993 on the Great Synagogue wall [Solovka, p. 462]. The memorial plaque is included in The List of Monuments of History and Monumental Art of Local Significance in the Ivano-Frankivsk Region.
Jewish Survivors from Israel erected a second monument in the late 1990s at the mass grave in the New Jewish cemetery in Horodenka, where the victims of the Action on April 13, 1942, were buried ["Horodenka...", Solovka, p. 462]. The monument has a Magen David and bolted plaques with information in Hebrew and Ukrainian.
Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, ed. Martin Dean, vol. 2 (Bloomington: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2012), pp. 780-781.
"HORODENKA: Ivano-Frankivska oblast [Gorodënka ]," International Jewish Cemetery Project, International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, http://iajgscemetery.org/eastern-europe/ukraine/horodenka-ivano-frankivska-oblast (accessed April 27, 2023)
Solovka, Liubov and Svitlana Oryshko, 150 iz 150 tysiach... Holokost yevreiv Prykarpattia yak skladova etnodemohrafichnoi Katastrofy Skhidnoi Halychyny, (Ivano-Frankivsk: Foliant, 2019), pp. 181, 462-463.