GALICIA
Originally
called Galicia- Lodomeria,
Galicia
(pronounced Ga-lee-tzia) was
an area in the borderland between the Russian Empire and the
Austro-Hungarian
Empire of the pre-1918 era. It was returned to Poland when that state
was
reestablished after the First World War, and defined, for the most
part, as
Southeastern Poland (East of Krakow) that extended into Ukraine and was
all
part of Poland before World War II, stretching East to the city of
L’vov (now
L’viv). Most of Galicia
was
occupied by the USSR
in 1939,
and then by Germany
after June 1941.
After World
War II, the eastern part of Galicia
was annexed into the Ukraine,
and the western part of it became a part of Poland. The term Galicia
is no
longer recognized as a county, province or a region
The Jewish
population lived mainly in small towns and consisted about 10% of the
entire
population. Most
lived poorly, largely working in small workshops and enterprises, and
as
craftsmen, such as tailors, carpenters, hat makers, jewelers and
opticians. At
the same time, the number of Jewish intellectual workers proportionally
to the Ukrainian
or Polish population was much higher. There were many physicians,
dentists ,
workers in culture, theaters and cinema, barbers, nurses, and lawyers.
In the end of
the 18th and
the beginning of the 19th century Galicia
was a stronghold not only
of Hassidism but also of the
Haskalah Movement, which gave birth to Jewish nationalism and to Jewish
strivings for assimilation into German and Polish society. But by the
end of
the 19th century Zionism started challenging assimilation.
After World War I, Galicia served as a
battleground
between Ukrainian and Polish forces. When in 1920, Galicia
passed to Poland,
Galician Jews and Ukrainians experienced ethnic oppression by
undergoing a forceful
Polonization.
In
September 1939, most of Galicia
passed to the Soviet Ukraine.
The
majority of Galician Jews perished in the Holocaust. They were
exterminated in
the German death camps of Sobibor, Belzec and Majdanek, as well as
other
ghettos and camps, and in shooting operations. What remains today is a
landscape of occasionally restored cemeteries and synagogues, but few
Jews. Most
survivors immigrated to Israel
or the United States.
The very few who remained in Ukraine
or Poland
have undergone assimilation.
In the
popular perception, Galitzianers were considered to
be more emotional and prayerful than their rivals, the Litvaks, who
thought of
them as irrational and uneducated. They, in turn, held the Litvaks in
disdain.
The two groups diverged in their Yiddish accents and even in their
cuisine,
separated by the "Gefilte Fish Line", Galitzianers like things sweet,
even to the extent of putting sugar in their fish.