This is a descriptive annual report for Rohatyn Jewish Heritage (RJH) covering the calendar year 2021. As for every year, this report summarizes our project progress and events, with an outline of our NGO finances as well. To put this unusual year in context, see our report for 2020 (prior years’ reports are also accessible in the news section of…
Last month Rohatyn Jewish Heritage participated in a moving and long overdue memorial service. Ця сторінка також доступна українською. Thanks to the Rosolovska family of the village of Chesnyky (Чесники) near Rohatyn, Chesnyky’s prewar Jewish families were honored through the unveiling of a monument to their memory on October 18, next to the common grave where almost a dozen Jews…
Temperatures are dropping fast in western Ukraine now, and Marla and I have concluded that the season for working to clear wild vegetation at the Jewish burial sites in Rohatyn has reached an end. We still expect more rain before the snows begin and plant life goes dormant, but the chill should slow wild growth significantly so that we can…
For the second time so far in 2021, Rohatyn Jewish Heritage team member Vasyl Yuzyshyn was alerted to Jewish headstone fragments discovered outside the Jewish cemetery. Ця стаття також доступна українською. This week a local homeowner, Zinoviy Pavlyuk, reported the fragments to the Opillya local history museum in Rohatyn. Mr. Pavlyuk’s family bought a home on vul. Drahomanova (also called…
Marla and I would like to inform you about the beginnings of a new project which we hope will ultimately provide enhanced, sustainable protection and commemoration of the Jewish mass graves in Rohatyn, and also help to develop and distribute Holocaust-related educational materials for teachers and students in Rohatyn and Ukraine. This is a formal three-year collaborative project involving dozens…
Jay and I were unable to stand in person again this year before the memorial at the “vodokanal” north mass grave in Rohatyn to remember the more than 3,000 Jewish victims of the final liquidation of Rohatyn’s wartime Jewish ghetto in June 1943. In our stead and on behalf of Jewish descendants today was Rohatyn Jewish Heritage team member and…
In April and May, Rohatyn experienced a series of alternating days of wet and sunny weather, typical for the season, causing an explosion of new grasses and shrubs to come up at the old and new Jewish cemeteries. By mid-May, both cemeteries were ready for their first clearings of 2021 and thankfully, Rohatyn Jewish Heritage team member (and four-year volunteer)…
It is with tremendous sadness that we report on the passing today in Rohatyn of Mykhailo Vorobets, retired teacher, author, local historian, and carrier of memory of the city’s prewar Jewish families and their history. Having contracted COVID-19 last November, Mr. Vorobets was confined to bed for most of winter. In late April, our friend Vasyl Yuzyshyn was in Rohatyn…
Last March 20, 2020, Jay and I stood before the memorial to the more than 3000 Jewish victims of Rohatyn executed on that date in 1942. This year we were unable to do so due to COVID-19, but thanks to dear friend and Rohatyn Jewish Heritage team member Vasyl Yuzyshyn, the destroyed Jewish community of Rohatyn was still remembered at…
New bilingual directional signs and maps were installed this month at key locations in Rohatyn which highlight more than a dozen landmarks, cultural sites, and tourist attractions, including three of Rohatyn’s Jewish heritage sites. Attractive signs now point toward the “old” Jewish cemetery in Rohatyn (one is also installed at its entrance), and there are directional signs now indicating routes…