Boryslaw & Jewish Community

There are many sources of information in literature, photos and web sites on the town and its people. The jewish population in Boryslaw till World War II was about 15,000 people which was about one third of the town population. After the war, less than 500 people survived, but fortunately some of them took the effort to write down their memories & history.

Here is a list of the sources I used.

Web Sites & Documents

http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/drohobycz/shtetls/shtetls_Boryslaw.asp - This is excellent site to begin with. It includes the history of the town and the community before and during the war

http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/drohobycz/people/PeopleMem_Markel.asp  - A truly remarkable story of Mordecai Markel's survival. It is representative of what most of the jews in the town went through

http://yizkor.nypl.org/index.php?id=1218 - Yizkor Book for Drohobycz & Boryslaw (in hebrew)

http://sites.google.com/site/mordechaimarkel/Home/exodus - Exodus From Hell - Mordecai Markel's story in hebrew

Borislaw roots trip July 2012 by Dave Bloom

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Borislav/Borislav.html - Translation of "The Tyśmienica still flows"

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Drohobycz/Drogobych.html#TOC - Translation of Sefer zikaron le-Drohobycz, Boryslaw ve-ha-seviva 

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_poland/pol2_00092.html - Translation of “Borysław” chapter from Pinkas Hakehillot Polin

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_poland/pol2_00160.html - Translation of “Drohobycz” chapter from Pinkas Hakehillot Polin

http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/shoah/index.html - The story of Arnold Distler, survivor from Boryslaw including a video testimony in english

Story of Ignacy Goldwasser

Irena Peritz's Wartime Memories

Olga Sher's Story

The story of Mayer family

You can also search by yourself for additional sources. There are plenty more. One important tip when searching google is that to find the information you may need to look for different spellings of the town. Each spelling will give you different results (the bold ones are the most common ones) :

• Boryslaw (English name)

  • Borislaw

• Boryslav (Ukrainian name in english)

  • Borislav

• Borysław (Polish name)

• Борислав (Ukrainian name)

  • Борисла́в

• בוריסלב (Hebrew name)

  • בוריסלאב

Documents

Enter "Boryslaw" in the places field on this page and click "Search". Among the docs you can find :

• • Lists of Jewish survivors who used to live in Boryslaw living in Dolny Slask, Wroclaw and Walbrzych, Poland

  • Lists of Jewish forced laborers from the Boryslaw Ghetto, 11-12/1942

  • List of deported Jews from Boryslaw, 1941-1943

  • List of educated Jews who had been murdered from Boryslaw and Drohobycz, 1941-1943

Books

באין אלהים, קופל הולצמן

Be'ein Elohim, Koppel Holzman (Hebrew)

This is an excellent though shocking book describing in details the life in Boryslaw from 1941 till end of the war. written by a survivor.

The book was translated from polish (Ziemia Bez Boga). It is available in used books stores in Israel (it was published in 1957). Search Here

Koppel has also written the book Jeśli cię zapomnę (If I forget you).

JEŚLI CIĘ ZAPOMNĘ, Koppel Holzman

If I forget You, Koppel Holzman (Polish)

AFAIK, This book was not translated to English/Hebrew. I haven't read it, but I think it also talks about the same subject as the previous book.

You may be able to find it in some polish used books stores.

האמנתי שאשאר בחיים, בצלאל לינהרד

Heemanti She'eshaer Ba'haim, Bezalel Linhard (Hebrew)

This is also a great book describing the impossible life in Boryslaw during the war.

You can buy this online on the online shop of Yad Vashem

אני והמלחמה ההיא, מאיר חמיידס

That War and Me, Meir Chameides (Hebrew/English)

The story of Meir's family from Boryslaw during the holocaust from the eye of a teenager. 

You can find the book in Yad Vashem's library.

Destined to Live, Sabina Wolanski (English)

Haven't read the book yet.

You can buy the book on Amazon

God's Horse and The Atheists' School, Wilhelm Dichter (English)

Haven't read the book yet.

You can buy the book on Amazon and BN

אדם בתקופה לא אנושית, ברנד שמלהאוזן

A man of courage in an inhuman time, Bernd Schmalhausen (Hebrew/English)

The story of Berthold Beitz who saved many jews from Boryslaw during the war.

You can buy this online on the online shop of Yad Vashem

Lost Boryslaw, Meilech Schiff (English)

Meilech describes his youth in Boryslaw before and during World War I. He left Boryslaw in 1925 to Canada so there is no information about the holocaust period. It also contains many memories about his friends & family but not so much about the actual life there.

This book is available in used books stores in US including Amazon

Drohobycz, Drohobycz and Other Stories, Henryk Grynberg (English)

A collection of interlinked tales of the Holocaust and Jewish life afterwards in Poland.

Haven't read the book, but it seems interesting.

The book is available in Amazon.

Längst nicht mehr koscher: Die Geschichte einer Familie, Claudia Erdheim (German)

The Galician-Jewish family Erdheim between 1874-1945 in the tension between emancipation and Isolation...

The book is available in Amazon.

Photos

Please goto to Boryslaw Media page