Obj. ID: 44709
Jewish Funerary Art  Memorial to the Jews of Bohorodchany in the New Jewish Cemetery in Ivano Frankivsk, Ukraine

To the main object: New Jewish Cemetery in Ivano Frankivsk (Stanisławów), Ukraine

In 1939, there were 860 Jews in Bohorodczany [Solovka and Oryshko, p. 524]. In the spring of 1942, Nazis began to deport Jews from the towns and villages of Stanisłaawów district to the Stanisławów Ghetto. From Bohorodczany, 800 Jews were brought to Stanisławów on May 11 and 70 Jews in November. The Jews from the Stanisławów district were placed in the Rudolf's mill and the Shusman Factory in the Stanisławów Ghetto, some of them were also deported to the Bełżec killing center. Every Saturday from July until October 1942, Nazis brought 500 Jews from the Rudolf's mill and the Shusman Factory to the New Jewish cemetery and shot them there [Solovka, Liubov, and Svitlana Oryshko, p. 142].

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, a Memorial 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].

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]. This Monument is dedicated to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Bohorodchany. Hasten and Halpern Families installed it in the cemetery in August 2002 [Levin]. The date June 16, 1942, is mentioned in the inscription as a date of the mass murder of Jews from Bohorodchany. We could not find any information about events in the cemetery on that day, and we do not know on what information the author of the epitaph was based. The phrase "Here rest" in the epitaph most likely means not the exact place, where the monument stands, but the whole cemetery because there are no precisely defined mass graves in the New Jewish Cemetery in Ivano-Frankivsk.