Tarnobrzeg - Extinct Jewish Community of Tarnobrzeg

Extinct Jewish Community of Tarnobrzeg

Pre-Holocaust Tarnobrzeg, a shtetl of western Galicia, was home to a thriving and traditional Jewish community. Tarnobrzeg is situated in a region of Poland that is relatively distant from the better-known larger Jewish communities of the country which were located in cities such as Warsaw, Kraków, Lublin, Lwow, Wilno and many others. Nonetheless, the History of Jews in Poland is confluent with the history of the town. Jewish inhabitants of Tarnobrzeg, and their descendants, are considered Galitzianers or Galician Jews.

In the years 1772-1918 (see: Partitions of Poland), Tarnobrzeg was in the province of Galicia as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, based in Vienna. The 19th century after 1815 was, across Europe, a period of relative peace and stability following the conclusion of the extremely violent Napoleonic Wars. Due to progressive initiatives following Napoleonic times, Tarnobrzeg citizens including the Jewish Community benefited from compulsory free public education mandated by the Austrian Emperor. The same was not true for other Polish Jewry situated in areas outside of Galicia, e.g., Danzig or Warsaw. Compulsory public education was opposed by some Jewish religious authorities who believed that traditional Jewish Torah and Talmud studies should not even be partially supplanted by secular instruction.

The political stability ended in Tarnobrzeg and surrounding areas with the collapse of the Austrian Empire as a result of World War I portended a difficult future for Tarnobrzeg's Jews. Although atrocities and population displacements during World War II dominate the history of Tarnobrzeg's Jews, deportations during World War I to trans-Ural Russia were also highly disruptive and destroyed much of the established community. Many emigrated to the United States or Palestine.

Nearby shtetlach (Jewish or Yiddish-language plural of shtetl) of, e.g., Rozwadów and Ulanów had many commercial and family ties to Tarnobrzeg. There were several affinity groups among the thriving Jewish population before World War II, including Hasidic, Zionist, Bundist (Socialist), and others. Many Jewish citizens of Tarnobrzeg emigrated to Palestine, later to become Israel, during the pre-World War II period.

Prominent Tarnobrzeg citizen Moses Hauser, who was Jewish, was a centenarian whose lifespan nearly coincided with the 19th century. Hauser was a wealthy businessman, trader, and landholder dating from Napoleonic times through the reign of Austrian Emperor Franz Josef. His life is documented in a Yizkor (Memorial) Book published by Tarnobrzeg elders following the Holocaust. Hauser was father to twelve children and many descendents living in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere.

The atrocities committed by the German occupiers against Jewish and Polish citizens of Tarnobrzeg during the Holocaust obliged the Jews to choose between a limited number of mortally dangereous escape routes or alternatively to perish by remaining. Very few people were known to have survived as Jews in Tarnobrzeg, where they would have needed to be hidden by righteous gentiles. Those migrating eastward to communist Russia had to choose between permanent communist citizenship, service in the Red Army in its battles against the Wehrmacht, and loss of freedom to subsequently leave Russia or alternatively to become displaced persons known as DPs. DPs were temporarily relocated by the Russian government to work camps in Siberia, there to wait out the war. Many DPs perished owing to extremely rugged conditions for which they were unprepared, and poor supplies available in wartime trans-Ural Russian Asia. Those who survived were permitted to depart Russian lands following World War II.