Destruction of Two Communities

During World War II Lvov first fell under the control of the Soviets and in the summer of 1940, many of the 200,000 Jews who had sought refuge there from other parts of embattled Europe were exiled to remote regions of the Soviet Union. Businesses were taken away and synagogues closed. There were still over 100,000 Jews in Lvov when the Nazis took control in 1941.

In this region, many memorial monuments are commissioned by officials and have little thought put to them. You might say that's better than nothing, but occasionally a powerful testimonial comes along that is both powerfully emotional and informative. That is definitely the case with the memorial at the remains of the Golden Rose synagogue in Lviv. The funding for this project came from the city of Lviv, the German International Development Agency, and private donors. It is called "The Space of Synagogues". It includes quotations from some of Lviv's illustrious residents such as Martin Buber, as well as reminiscences and testimony from those who managed to survive. Here is one of the quotations: The entire history of the Jews in this city comes together in this close, fenced in little courtyard... And from the old walls of the synagogue the cold, the frost of the ages beat down, the shudder of four long centuries... Walk through these streets with me, enter these buildings that for centuries have hidden so many contradictions, so many things elevated and base, reconstruct in your fantasy what is no more... (Majer Balaban, in Polish)

Images of Lviv from before the war and during and interspersed on the reverse side of the quotations.

The image closest to you is an early photograph of the interior of the Golden Rose synagogue.

Separated from the other stele are blank ones for the story untold.

This fenced off clearing is where over 100,000 Jewish residents of Lviv were gunned down by the Nazis. It's unclear if it will remain like this or be memorialized in any way. There is no marker indicating what this is.

A few blocks away from the empty site is a Holocaust memorial park. It is located on the site that was the Lvov ghetto from where Jews were either killed nearby or deported to concentration camps elsewhere. Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi hunter, was forced into this ghetto (the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles is named for him). The ghetto was liquidated in 1943.

This memorial park was established in 1992, after Ukraine achieved independence from the Soviets. Before that there was no acknowledgment at all of what happened here.

Plaques remembering family members have been installed as remembrance as there is no grave for any of the people who were lost.

The cubist style figure of a man in prayer and grief reaching towards the sky. The trees behind are planted as a sign of hope and renewal.

About 1000 of Lvov's Jewish community survived in the sewers under the city and were aided by brave individuals, especially priests. There have been books written by these survivors, less than 1% of the original population of Lvov.

The Leopolis Hotel was a shoe factory, where a number of Jewish people were hidden during the war. This is a good note to end this posting since our little group celebrated a Jewish holiday on the roof overlook of the hotel. Despite all that happened tragically in this city there is still hope. We are still here.