Romaniv, early 20th Century

The twentieth century is a story of emigration, family separation, violent pogroms, political and social upheaval, and annihilation. 

Millions of Eastern European Jews emigrated between 1880 and 1920.  Those who stayed behind faced the Bolshevik Revolution, followed by the Russian civil war from 1917-1921, during which murderous gangs roamed the area. Those families who left for America before WWI were separated from emigre family members elsewhere, e.g., in South America. Families were separated for a century or more; descendants are to this day searching for South American cousins whose grandparents or great-grandparents were denied entry to the United States after 1920, when immigration was closed to certain groups, including those from the Soviet Union.  Finally, those who stayed behind in Europe perished in the Holocaust. We illustrate this with the story of one Romaniv family. 

Romaniv Jews, Abraham Schneiderman (b. 1891) and his young wife, Beile Gilman Schneiderman (b. 1895), immigrated to America before WWI, eventually settling in Los Angeles, California.  They were cut off from family members. Some remained in the Soviet Union and perished in the Holocaust. Some emigrated after WWI and were denied entry to the United States, settling in Argentina instead. 

In 2015, in Los Angeles, the U.S. and Argentinian branches were reunited after 100 years.  The U.S. branch brought a large box of photographs to the reunion; on the back of the photos were letters in schoolgirl Yiddish, from Chana Rochel Gilman Blecher (b. 1900) in Argentina to her older sister, Beile Gilman Schneiderman in Los Angeles. 

During the civil war, marauding gangs came to Romaniv and murdered Beile and Chana Rochel's 15-year-old brother, Ishaeleiv Blecher.  Like many Romaniv families, the Blechers - Ishaeleiv's three sisters and parents - immigrated after WWI, in 1921, to Córdoba, Argentina.  The family remembered the tragedy of losing their only son; they didn't remember, however which of the various factions murdered him. Such was the devastation and chaos of those years of the Russian civil war. 

The shops in Romaniv, many of which were previously owned by the Jews, were closed by the Soviets at the beginning of the 1930s. Many Jews had to work in local factories, while several Jewish artisans joined cooperatives. 

In 1931, twenty Jewish families established the Jewish kolkhoz “Lenins Veg” (The Way of Lenin). By the end of 1939, less than half of the kolkhoz members were Jewish. 

A Jewish ethnic soviet (council) operated in Romaniv and, from 1926, a Yiddish school as well, until they were liquidated at the end of the 1930s. In 1939, the town had 1,720 Jews, 24 percent of the total population.

Sources: 

• Yad Vashem Untold Stories: Dzerzhinsk 

• The Pogroms of the Russian Civil War at 100: New Trends, New Sources  

• Blejer-Schneiderman Family Stories