Obj. ID: 43341
Jewish Funerary Art Holocaust Memorial in the New Jewish Cemetery in Ivano Frankivsk, Ukraine
To the main object: New Jewish Cemetery in Ivano Frankivsk (Stanisławów), Ukraine
Memorial Name
No official name.
Who is Commemorated?
Jewish Victims of the Holocaust from the Stanisławów region
Description
Inscriptions
120000 יהודים
נספי השואה
תש''א - תש''ד
In memory
of 120000 Jews
victims of
the Holocaust
1941 - 1944
In Ukrainian:
В памʼять
про 120000 жертв
Холокосту
1941 - 1944
Translation: In the memory / of 120000 victims / of the Holocaust / 1941 - 1944
Commissioned by
Local Jewish community
sub-set tree:
In 1931, there were about 140,000 Jews in the whole Stanisławów region [Solovka and Oryshko, p. 69]. In 1939, there were about 26,500 Jews in Stanisławów (now Ivano-Frankivsk) [Solovka and Oryshko, p. 560]. Soviet troops occupied Stanisławów in September 1939. In July 1941, the Hungarian army entered the city, and Nazi Germany took control of it in August 1941 [United States Holocaust Memorial Museum].
On August 3–4, 1941, Nazi Germans killed 2,865 of Stanisławów’s Jews in Gestapo prison and the forest in Pawełcze (now Pavlivka) [Solovka and Oryshko, p. 139].
On October 12, 1941, between 8,000 and 12,000 Jews were killed in the New Jewish cemetery [Encyclopedia, p. 832].
On March 31, 1942, the first deportations of Jews from Stanisławów to the killing center in Bełżec began [Encyclopedia, p. 832].
In the spring of 1942, the nazis began to concentrate Jews from nearby into the Stanisławów Ghetto. This included 680 Jews from Lysets district, 4,000 Jews from Tłumacz, 1862 Jews from Sołotwin district, 870 Jews from Bohorodczany, 2,800 Jews from Nadwórna, 1,500 Jews from Tysmenica, 700 Jews from Halicz, 2,500 Jews from Kałusz, 1,200 Jews from Ottynia, 66 Jewish families from Czerniejów and the Jews from Wojniłów and Jezupol districts [Solovka and Oryshko, p. 142].
On September 12, 1942, the last large mass murder took place in Bandler Square in Stanisławów [Solovka].
Jews in Stanisławów were also killed in Rudolf’s mill, where old and sick people were held [Solovka].
In the New Jewish Cemetery in Stanisławów, several Actions took place. The first and largest one took place on October 12, 1941. During the week of April 12, 1942, about 3,000 Jews were brought from Rudolf's mill and killed in the cemetery. Every Saturday from July until October 1942, Nazis brought 500 Jews to the cemetery and shot them. After the official liquidation of the Stanisławów Ghetto on February 23, 1943, mass murders continued in the cemetery. From January 25, 1944, until March 25, 1944, 105 inmates of Janowska concentration camp were forced to excavate the bodies, burn them and crush bones. The exact number of people killed in the New Jewish Cemetery in Stanisławów is unknown [Solovka and Oryshko, p. 139–144].
On February 23, 1943, the Stanisławów Ghetto was officially liquidated and Stanisławów was announced as “free of Jews”. About 1,500 Jews from Stanisławów survived the war [Encyclopedia, p. 833].
According to the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission to Investigate German-Fascist Crimes Committed on Soviet Territory, 127,352 Jews perished in Stanisławów, although Liubov Solovka suggests that this amount included all Jews killed in the whole Stanisławów region without taking into account Jewish refugees and Jews deported from Hungary [Solovka and Oryshko, p. 560–561].
Memorialization activities in the New Jewish Cemetery in Ivano-Frankivsk started in the 1940s. The first monument was erected by the Local Jewish Survivors [Zeltser]. It is designed to not stand out among the other graves in the cemetery.
A second monument was erected by the Soviet authorities in 1964 ["Ivano-Frankivska oblast"]. The inscription does not specify the ethnicity of the victims and indicates that more than 100,000 Soviet citizens were killed at this place. According to Solovka, it contributed to the emergence of the myth about the number of people killed in the New Jewish Cemetery [Solovka, Liubov and Svitlana Oryshko, p. 460]. The Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Executive Committee included the monument to The List of Monuments of History and Monumental Art of Local Significance in the Ivano-Frankivsk Region by decision no. 612/4 on November 28, 1969 ["Ivano-Frankivska oblast"].
Further memorialization activity took place in Independent Ukraine. In the 2000s, this Monument dedicated to 120,000 victims of the Holocaust was erected by the Local Jewish Community. It is the highest and the most outstanding monument in the cemetery, its inscription does not specify, that all the 120,000 Jews were killed in the New Jewish Cemetery in Ivano-Frankivsk. Therefore, it can be assumed, that it is dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust from the whole Stanisławów region [Solovka and Oryshko, p. 461–462]. In the past few years (as of 2023), the Monument is the scene of memorial activities on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The representatives of the local authority and the Jewish Community visit the memorial, and lay flowers and stones there [Bakun].
In the New Jewish Cemetery in Ivano-Frankivsk, there are also two monuments that commemorate smaller Jewish communities. A memorial to Jews from the vicinities of Stanisławów was erected by the Local Jewish Community in the 2000s [Solovka and Oryshko, p. 461–462, 560]. A Memorial to Jews of Bohorodchany was installed in the cemetery by Hasten and Halpern Families in 2002 [Levin].
Bakun, Oleksandra, "V Ivano-Frankivsku vshanuvaly zhertv Holokostu," Halytskyi Korespondent, January 27, 2016, https://gk-press.if.ua/v-ivano-frankivsku-vshanuvaly-zhertv-golokostu/ (accessed May 6, 2023)
Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, ed. Martin Dean, vol. 2 (Bloomington: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2012), pp. 831–834.
Feuerman, Juliusz, “Pamiętnik ze Stanisławowa (1941-1943),” Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego 59 (1966): 63-91, https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/755572/64/ (accessed April 19, 2023)
"Ivano-Frankivska oblast. Skhema planuvannia terytorii (zavershennia). Okhorona nerukhomykh obiektiv kulturnoi spadshchyny", vol. 3 (Kyiv: Derzhavne pidpryiemstvo "Ukrainskyi derzhavnyi naukovo-doslidnyi instytut proiektuvannia mist "Dipromisto" imeni Y.M. Bilokonia", 2015), p. 207., https://www.if.gov.ua/storage/app/sites/24/documentu-2022/ivano-frankivska-oblast-2015-tom-3.pdf (accessed May 3, 2023)
Levin, Vladimir. "Bohorodczany (Brotchin) - after WWII," Jewish Galicia and Bukovina, August 7, 2009, http://jgaliciabukovina.net/134269/article/bohorodczany-brotchin-after-wwii (accessed May 5, 2023)
Solovka, Liubov, "Henotsyd yevreiv Stanislava v roky Druhoi Svitovoi viiny," Visnyk Prykarpatskoho universytetu, IV (2008): 35-43, https://shron1.chtyvo.org.ua/Solovka_Liubov/Henotsyd_ievreiv_Stanislava_v_roky_Druhoi_svitovoi_viiny.pdf? (accessed April 21, 2023)
Solovka, Liubov and Svitlana Oryshko, 150 iz 150 tysiach... Holokost yevreiv Prykarpattia yak skladova etnodemohrafichnoi Katastrofy Skhidnoi Halychyny, (Ivano-Frankivsk: Foliant, 2019), pp. 69, 139–144, 460–462, 560–561.
"Stanisławów," United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/stanislawow (accessed April 21, 2023)
Zeltser, Arkadi, Unwelcome Memory: Holocaust Monuments in the Soviet Union, trans. A.S. Brown (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2018), pp. 124–125.