A Vanished Village

Today's Washington Post has a fascinating story about a unique Polish town.

Trochenbrod, founded in the early 19th century as a way for Jews to avoid long mandatory service in the Russian army, was one of a kind. While there were large Jewish communities in many cities and tiny Jewish farming villages scattered across Eastern Europe, Trochenbrod was an all-Jewish town the likes of which had not existed since ancient times.

The town prospered until the Soviets invaded in 1939, followed two years later by the Germans.

A handful of skilled tradesmen were taken to other towns by the Germans and worked to death or executed. A Jewish historian writing in April 1945, shortly before Germany surrendered, said only 33 of the town's residents were still alive by the end of 1944. By then, the town had returned to Soviet control.

The survivors had nothing to return to. Germans and Ukrainians had burned some of the buildings in the village. Other houses had been looted, disassembled and destroyed by partisans and farmers in the area. After the war, the Soviets bulldozed what remained and turned the land into a collective farm.

Trochenbrod had ceased to exist. [Link]

Making Do With Too Few Jews

Poland boasted a Jewish population of 3.5 million before the Holocaust, but only about 10,000 Jews live there now. Nevertheless, Poland is experiencing a Jewish revival.

"Jewish-style" restaurants are serving up platters of pirogies, klezmer bands are playing plaintive oriental melodies, derelict synagogues are gradually being restored. Every June, a festival of Jewish culture here draws thousands of people to sing Jewish songs and dance Jewish dances. The only thing missing, really, is Jews.

"It's a way to pay homage to the people who lived here, who contributed so much to Polish culture," said Janusz Makuch, founder and director of the annual festival and himself the son of a Roman Catholic family. [Link]