A postcard of Husiatyn marketplace in the 1920s, showing the devastation leveled by World War I. Husiatyn was a large Jewish shtetl in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, situated in Galicia close to the Russian border. Because of its location, it was an important point in trading between Russia and Austro-Hungary. Many thousands of Jews lived in Husiatyn, where there were two main synagogues. Husiatyn also developed a large Hasidic community. However, this location proved to be fatal when the First World War began and Austria and Germany became enemies. Husiatyn was suddenly right on the front lines, and it suffered terrible bombardments. Thousands fled the city, many to Vienna. Following the war the city never fully recovered in population, including the Jewish community. Husiatyn continued to have a smaller Jewish community throughout the 1920s, but its Golden Age as a Jewish center of the region was no more. Now part of Ukraine / Russia, the Jewish population fled ahead of or was murdered following the Nazi occupation in 1941-1942.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 14:00:43 +0000
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