1. POLISH LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH 1619
Pink = Kingdom of Poland
Lt. Pink = Duchy of Prussia
Purple = Grand Duch of Lithuania
Lt. Gray = Duchy of Courland
2. SH
SHTETL means small town in Yiddish. The SHTETLS
were predominately Jewish and ranged in population
from several hundred to several thousand inhabitants.
A SHTOT is a larger SHTETL and could be compared
to a city rather than a small town.
3. Before WWII there
SH thousands
were of Shtetls and
Shtots in Central and Eastern Europe, the majority of
these were located in what is now Poland, Lithuania
and Ukraine.
After WWII 90 percent of the Lithuanian (Litvak) and
Polish (Galician) and 60 percent of the Ukrainian Shtetl
inhabitants were wiped out by the Nazis.
4. SH
Almost all of the remaining Polish and Lithuanian
Jews for Israel or America. In Ukraine, many of the
Jews who survived stayed behind, some returning to
Shtetls , others settling in larger Shtots like
Chernivtsi and Lviv.
5. SH
But another plague would befall those survivors. Fifty
years of Communism had taken its toll and intermittent
periods of state-sponsored anti-semitism as well as
general neglect greatly reduced the Jewish populations
in living Shtetls as well as cultural sites in the remnant
Shtetls.
6. SH
Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which
constituted the 19th Century Pale of Settlement in the
Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland,
Galicia and Romania.
7. After the Partitions of the Polish Lithuanian
Commonwealth between Hapsburg, Russian and
Prussian Empires, over a million Jews now found
themselves living in the Russian Empire in the late
1790’s.
8. The period between 1791 and 1812 saw the formation
under special decrees of the Russian legislature, of what
was restricted space, both territorial and legal, known as
the PALE OF SETTLEMENT, i.e. “the areas where
the Jews were permitted to settle and reside.” It
included the following provinces:
NW RUSSIA: Vitebsk, Minsk, Mogilev, Kovno & Grodno
provinces
SW RUSSIA: Volhyn, Kiev, Podolsk, Bessarabia & Kherson
provinces
SE RUSSIA: Chernigov, Poltava, Yekaterinoslav &
Tavrichesky provinces
KINGDOM OF POLAND: Suvalki, Sedlec, Lublin, Lomza,
Plotsk, Warsaw, Petrokovskaya, Kalishskaya, Radom &
Keletskaya provinces.
9. SH
So the notion of Shtetl, just like the fate and history of
the Ashkenazi Jews, is inextricably linked with the
geopolitical upheavals of Poland and its neighors,
specifically the partitions of Poland and the Pale of
Settlement placed upon Polish-Lithuanian Jews by the
Russians.
10. The three partitions of Poland took place in
1772, 1793 and 1795
These maps show how Poland changed during
the period it was under Napoleonic rule (Duchy
of Warsaw), Congress Poland or Kingdom of
Poland (within the Russian Empire), and
Independent Poland (after 1921).
11.
12. The Jews who found
themselves in Prussian or
Hapsburg territory fared
much better and many of
them became assimilated.
Emancipation took place in
these territories generations
before they were finally
granted in the Russian
Empire.
14. Congress Poland was created out of the
Duchy of Warsaw at the Congress of Vienna
in 1815, when European states reorganized
Europe following the Napoleonic wars. The
creation of Congress Poland created a
partition of Polish lands in which the state
was divided and ruled between Russia,
Austria and Prussia
15. RUMP POLAND BECAME DUCHY OF WARSAW (1807-1813)
IT BECAME CONGRESS POLAND w/in RUSSIAN EMPIRE
(1815-1921)
16. So once again the
fate of Eastern
European Jews
became
inextricably linked
with the
geopolitics of
Poland
17. DESPITE ECONOMIC HARDSHIPS, THE
POPULATION OF THE JEWS GREW TO
NEARLY 5 MILLION IN THE PALE OF
SETTLEMENT BY THE END OF THE 19TH
CENTURY.
18. The Shtetl epitomized Jewish community life in
central and Eastern Europe. Everything centered
around the community: its religious
observances, a major emphasis on studying the
Talmud and carrying for one another.
19. Based on religious devotion, a unique subculture
evolved, it included a sense of ethnic identity, and
a collective memory of living in a thousand-
year-old diaspora that made itself apparent
through folk tradition.
20. It was in the shtetl that a full-fledged ethno-
cultural environment took shape, which
ultimately influenced the culture of Eastern
European Jews. It captured and encapsulated
a Jewish cultural DNA.
25. LUBLIN WAS OFTEN REFERRED TO AS THE
JERUSALEM OF THE SOUTH
THE NEXT TWO PICTURES ARE CURRENT
RENOVATIONS TAKING PLACE BENEATH THE
FOUNDATIONS OF THE HISTORIC GRODZKA
GATE, THAT SEPARATED THE CHRISTIAN AND
JEWISH PARTS OF LUBLIN UNTIL WWII
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28. WROCLAW
IN SW POLAND
CAPITAL OF HAPSBURG PROVINCE OF SILESIA
HAD A SIGNIFICANT
PRE-WAR JEWISH POPULATION.
AMONG THEM WAS FRITZ STERN
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32. WARSAW
CAPITAL OF POLAND
HAD A SIGNIFICANT
PRE-WAR JEWISH POPULATION.
42. • VILNIUS, CAPITAL OF LITHUANIA, WAS PART OF POLAND
UNTIL 1939.
IN ITS HEYDAY, IT WAS OFTEN REFERRED TO AS THE
JERUSALEM OF THE NORTH. JEWS SETTLED THERE IN THE
15TH CENTURY. BEFORE WWII 100,000 JEWS LIVED IN
VILNIUS. 26,000 OF THEM SURVIVED THE HOLOCAUST.
TODAY, THERE ARE 5,000 JEWS LIVING IN VILNIUS.
THERE WERE ONCE OVER 100 SYNAGOGUES IN
VILNIUS, NOW THERE IS ONLY ONE FUNCTIONING
SYNAGOGUE.
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52. SHTETL #1
VABALNINKAS
IN NORTH CENTRAL LITHUANIA
(2 1/2 HOURS DRIVE NORTH OF KAUNAS)
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70. SH
SHTETL #2
BERSHAD
IN THE PODOLIA REGION
OF CENTRAL UKRAINE
(Between Kiev and Odessa)
71. The shetls in this particular region of Ukraine
were actually living shtetls up until just a few
years ago. By a fluke of history, most of the
Jews of this region of Ukraine known as
Transnistria survived the Holocaust because
they fell under Romanian rather than German
occupation during the war.
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91. SHTETL #3
TREBIC
IN MORAVIAN REGION
IN SOUTHERN
CZECH REPUBLIC
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100. Bukovina was last of 2 provinces to be added
to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1774 (the
other one being Galicia). It’s crown jewel and
capital city was Chernivitsi, a city in which the
Austrian Emperor encouraged Jews to settle.
It became the cultural capital of modern
Jewish culture and incubator for many
movements. The first Yiddish Conference was
held there in 1908 and another one marking
the 100 th Anniversary was held there last year.
