Obj. ID: 45059
Jewish Funerary Art Holocaust memorial on the site of the Jewish cemetery in Obertyn, Ukraine
To the main object: Site of the Jewish cemetery in Obertyn, Ukraine
Memorial Name
No official name
Who is Commemorated?
Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Obertyn
Description
The monument is located in a restored Jewish cemetery in Obertyn. The front side of the monument faces the cemetery fence. It is a forged metal plaque, which stands on two metal posts. The plaque bears Ukrainian, Polish (written without diacritic marks), English, and Hebrew inscriptions.
Inscriptions
Ukrainian:
Нехай буде благословенна памʼять про євреїв, мешканців Обертина,
серед яких 2000 закатованих у другій світовій війні.
Вічна їм памʼять
Translation: May the memory of Jews, residents of Obertyn be blessed / among them 2,000 tortured [people] in World War II. / Eternal memory to them
In Polish:
Blogoslawiona niech bedzie pamiec Zydowskich mieszkancow Obertyna,
a posrod nich 2000 Zydow zamordowanych podczas II wojny swiatowej.
Niech odpoczywaja w pokoju wiecznym
Translation: May the memory of Jewish residents of Obertyn be blessed, / among them 2,000 Jews murdered during World War II. / May [they] rest in eternal peace.
In English:
In the memory of the Jewish community who lived in Obertyn,
and especially the 2,000 Jews murdered during World War II.
May their memory be blessed for ever
In Hebrew:
לזכר הקהילה היהודית שהייתה באוברטין
ובמיוחד 2.000 מיהודי העיר
שנרצחו במלחמת העולם השנייה
יהיה זכרם ברוך
ת.נ.צ.ב.ה. [=תהי נשמתם צרורה בצרור החיים]
Translation: In memory of the Jewish community which was in Obertyn / and especially 2,000 of them, / who were murdered in World War II / May their memory be blessed // May their souls be bound in the bundle of life
Commissioned by
Local enterpreneur in Obertyn Bohdan Stanislavskyi [to be confirmed]
2 image(s)
sub-set tree:
| At the crossroad of Ivana Sirka and Halana streets
According to Liubov Solovka, there were 1,400 Jews in Obertyn in 1939. In 1941, the number of Jews in the village increased due to the arrival of Hungarian Jews from the Tarnopol region (Tłuste, Zaleszczyki). Jews from Obertyn were deported to Kołomyja, Horodenka, and Bełżec killing centers and perished there [Solovka, p. 202]. In February 1942, about 500 Jews from Obertyn were shot in the Szeparowce Forest near Kołomyja [Solovka, p. 173].
After WWII, the Soviet Authority built over the Jewish cemetery in Obertyn as part of a kolkhoz, a collective farm. The tombstones were used in a foundation of a building. In about 2007, local entrepreneur Bohdan Stanislavskyi purchased the land of the former kolkhoz. Due to the fact that there was a cemetery, he could not build on the land.
After the presentation of the book "The Strange Ways of Providence in My Life" by Krystyna Carmi, a memoir about her life in Obertyn before and during the Holocaust, Stanislavskyi decided to restore the cemetery. He dismantled the kolkhoz building, planted the area of the cemetery with grass, and transferred the tombstones from the foundation of the kolkhoz building back to the cemetery. The dedication of the restored cemetery was attended by descendants of Obertyn Jews, Rabbi of the Ivano-Frankivsk region Moyshe Leib Kolesnyk, and local residents.
Stanislavskyi believed that Jews themselves should decide what to do with the cemetery, Rabbi Moyshe Leib Kolesnyk said that it should be kept as a memorial cemetery there [Dobosh].
The memorial was erected between 2017 and 2019.
Solovka, Liubov and Svitlana Oryshko, 150 iz 150 tysiach... Holokost yevreiv Prykarpattia yak skladova etnodemohrafichnoi Katastrofy Skhidnoi Halychyny, (Ivano-Frankivsk: Foliant, 2019)
Dobosh, Halyna, "«Pamiataiu vse». Istoriia ievreiskoi divchynky i vidnovlennia ievreiskoho tsvyntaria v Obertyni," Radio Svoboda, July 17, 2017, https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/28621513.html (accessed September 4, 2023)