SNYATYN, (SNIATYN):
A Jewish shtetl from the mid 1500s through the mid 1940s.

The same street in Sniatyn in the early 1900s  and today.
Postcard: courtesy of Nicholas Martin. Photo by Dr. B. Solomowitz, 1992.


The sections of this site-page are:

A. Location
 

Ivano-Frankivsk

Sniatyn is a border town nestled on the banks of the Prut River--close to the Romanian border, and historically was a trade crossing to Romania. It is about 170 miles SSE of Lvov-- between Kolomyja in the West and Chernovits in the East. It was first mentioned in "print" in 1158 when it was named Ksniatyn  after Kostiantyn Stroslavich--a famous commander at the court of king Yaroslav Osmomysl. There have been Jews in the town since well before the 16th century, though there is only precise documentation of this from the middle 1500's when Sniatyn began to function as a crossing point for the passage of merchandise from Germany to the Ottoman empire for the Jewish merchants.


B. History
1. Overview     Sniatyn is currently located in the Ukraine. However, from 1772-1918 the Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled and the official language was German. After WWI it reverted back to Poland--with a corresponding change in the language of all official documents. The Romanians invaded at the start of W.W.II, followed by the Hungarians and then the Germans again. After WWII the town fell under the influence of the Soviets. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the town is now deemed part of the Ukraine. Because of its location, Sniatyn was a hub of trading and commerce, and thus, its residents spoke a little of many East European tongues. For Photographs of old Sniatyn postcard courtesy of Nicholas Martin

Starting in the 1870's, and accelerating with the turn of the century, the first large group of Sniatyner immigrants packed up and left. Pogroms and economic necessity motivated these immigrants. Most went to Israel, Canada, and the United States. Perhaps the biggest Jewish exodus occurred in response to the front-line fighting that took place in the area during WWI.   Jews in the town continued to leave, although in smaller numbers, until the late 1930's. At some point during World War II, all the Jews who were still left in Sniatyn were grouped together  and either  taken to the nearby forest and shot by Nazis and local Nazi sympathizers-- or sent to the death camp at Belzec. The synagogue was pillaged and burned.

 

From the "new" Sniatyner, Ukraine Jewish Cemetery.

From the "new" Sniatyner, Ukraine Jewish Cemetery. Picture taken in 1992 by Ben Solomowitz. The stone says:  1892, 15th Adar. Here lies a modest woman, Mrs. Bilimah, a daughter of Abraham.  May her soul be encircled in the binds of life.

Nowadays, in the Jewish cemetery--the stones, some leaning crazily askew, now lie untended, covered by weeds and dirt. (Some of the stones were pulled out by the Nazis to pave the street in front of the former Jewish home that was appropriated as the Nazi headquarters.)

2. WWII      In early July, 1941  Sniatyn was captured by units of the Romanian army (who were then German allies). About a week later, helped by some Ukrainian groups, the Romanians staged riots in the city and more than 20 Jews were murdered. Romanian soldiers then killed Jewish refugees from Bukowina and Bessarabia who were trying to seek shelter in Sniatyn. The Romanians had control of Sniatyn for about more two weeks after which the Hungarians took over. The Hungarians continued to seize Jews for forced labor, but the Hungarian military ruler also restrained the Ukrainians to a certain degree. (This was helpful because the Ukrainians had continued to continuously harass the Jews.) Those Jews who were taken for forced labor were occupied in harvesting grain and in road and bridge repair.

In September of 1941, rule of the city was transferred to the Germans. Immediately they took a Jewish census with an emphasis on those aged 15-60  (those required to participate in forced labor). All cattle, horses, and wagons belonging to Jews were confiscated .At the same time, a Judenrat was set headed up by  Cohen, the dentist in Sniatyn. The Judenrat was responsible for supplying people for forced labor, and were also held responsible for the many Jews who came to Sniatyn from surrounding villages during September and October.

In the end of September, 1941, the Germans arrested 30 Jews and demanded a high ransom for their release. Even though the ransom was paid, they were not released but were executed in the Potoczek forest near the city. Before their executions, they were forced to dig their own graves.

During the months of October and December, 1941,  there were approximately 500 executions of Jews in the Potoczek forest near Sniatyn.   Then, in early  1942, the Jews were concentrated in a special quarter of the city. There was extreme overcrowding there. Sanitary conditions were bad, and many died of hunger and disease.

On April 2, 1942, (the first day of Passover) all Jews were told to report to a central point, but most hid. Units of the German army, police, and Ukrainian militia mustered all those who did come into the public gymnasium, and they were held there for a week. During this period, the Germans and their assistants continued to bring Jews from the surrounding areas into the gymnasium until, ultimately, 5,000  persons were concentrated in that area. The conditions were inhumane .Many died of thirst; some were trampled to death-- and the Germans and the Ukrainians shot into the crowd and murdered many other Jews that way. The only ones released were a group of persons with vital professions, who were handed over to  the local Wehrmacht commanders. All those who remained were taken to the train station, put on freight cars, and carried to the Belzec death camp.

Those few left in Sniatyn tried to escape. Groups of young people and even some families, tried to get to Romania, but only a few succeeded. In the summer  of 1942, Romanian border patrols captured many of these refugees and turned them over to the German police. After interrogation and torture, they were executed. In the ghetto itself, bunkers were dug in order to find shelter during actions. In July of 1942, more exiles from surrounding areas were put into the ghetto, among them Jews from Zablotov.

The final destruction of the ghetto began on September 7, 1942. The Germans and their assistants set fire to part of the ghetto in order to find the hiding places of those that were hiding. Once again Jews were rounded up and placed in the gymnasium. This continued for four days. Some Jews were murdered in the streets of the city or in the gymnasium itself. The  remaining victims were marched to the train station-- 4 kilometers  away. While crossing a bridge, the Germans and Ukrainians shot a number of Jewish women, and their bodies were thrown off the bridge to the river below. About 1,500 of the remaining  Sniatyner Jews were sent for destruction to Belzec death camp. A few managed to save themselves by jumping off the train although many of the these were shot by the German guards, and others were turned in to the police by the local population and immediately murdered.

Sniatyn was then declared Juden rein [free of Jews].  (NB. In the area, there was still a small group of craftsmen who worked at an army camp. Within a few weeks, however, even these few remaining Jews were destroyed.) Only about 15 people succeeded in escaping at the last minute to Czernowitz and into Romania. In the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, those survivors went to Palestine.)


 
 

German officials examine the pile of abandoned luggage

German officials examine the pile of abandoned luggage left on the platform after the departure of a deportation train  on its way to the Belzec death camp. (Photo Archive in public domain)

NOTE: The Belzec death camp was in Poland. There, 600,000 Jews and hundreds of Gypsies were killed. Most were gassed  immediately upon arriving there--as was true of "death camps"--which differed from "concentration camps" (who employed some Jews in forced labor) in this way. From the winter of 1942 through the spring of 1943 the mass graves in Belzec were opened and the corpses burned--in order to try to destroy evidence of the mass murders perpetrated there.
 


C.  Famous Sniatyner Rabbis Through the Ages

Postcard of old Sniatyn courtesy of Nicholas Martin.

Postcard of old Sniatyn courtesy of Nicholas Martin.



  D. The Sniatyn Landsmanshaft: United Sniatyner Sick and Benevolent Society, Inc.
Our Sniatyner Society in New York City has been around since the turn of the century, and still meets twice a year in Manhattan. Composed of Sniatyners who left before and after W.W.II, their children, and their grandchildren, the Society today is an amalgam of five different Sniatyner societies of the past (the Sniatyner Kranken Unt). All have joined together into today's United Sniatyner Sick and Benevolent Society, Inc.

Sniatyn Landsmanshaft

Photograph of Sniatyn Landsmanshaft -- 38th Anniv. Banquet- Sniatyner KUV Jan. 5, 1935.
Bottom row right to left:Max Gottesman, Benjamin H. Sol (Solomowitz), William Seidman, Izzy Fleischer, Henry Goldner, 2 unknowns.
Top Row- Right to left: Moe Silver, Joe Karpel, Sam Lentz, unknown, Ben Blaustein, unknown, Morris Fleischer, Unknown.

 Between meetings, members often communicate to carry out Society projects. Recently, these have included: photographing of the headstones in the old Jewish cemetery in Sniatyn and translating and data basing the results, compiling information (interviews, pictures, maps, etc.) for the writing of  an on-line Yizkor book for Sniatyn, indexing of old tax records of the town, translating of an Israeli telephone list of former residents of Sniatyn, sending out questionnaires to diaspora-descendents of Sniatyn, and searching for other relevant historical documents. 
In recent years more and more second and third generation Sniatyners have joined the group.  For these people the group provides one avenue of finding out about their families who had lived in the town. Coming to a Sniatyner meeting --one meets a group of people who, one can sense, come from the same place--a place that still lightly bonds us--the town of Sniatyn on the Prut. Those of us who heard about the town from our grandparents who left around the 1900 s, heard words of flowing rivers, large, close families, vast forests, and merchant and trader occupations, However, starting in the early 1930--descriptions of life in the town inevitably changed to scenes of rising uneasy interchange between Jews and Poles, leading to pogroms, leading to the slaughter of all the Jews in the town--all slaughtered in that deep forest when countless young lovers had secretly met, and where many Sniatyner children had lain in the grass and dreamed.

{If you are interested in joining our landsmanshaft, including access to historical and geneological information that we continue to accumulate, kindly contact the email address at the bottom of this webpage.}


E. A Rich Remembrance of Pre-War Sniatyn: An interview with Keila Adlerstein, born in Sniatyn, 1904.
Luxembourg, 21/07/98   Interview conducted by Luca Ascoli with Keila Adlerstein (his grandmother) from 10/04/98 to 12/04/98 in Ancona, Italy. Note: Mr. Ascoli's translation has not been corrected.
 

An interview with Keila Adlerstein

1. FAMILY BACKGROUND My name is Keila Adlerstein, but they always called me Clara. I was born on 29/03/1904 in Sniatyn, Galicia. My father's name was Chaim Adlerstein, and he was also born in Sniatyn. His family lived in Sniatyn for generations. My mother was called Peshe Rukhl Rosner and she came from Jabloniza (* a village SW from Sniatyn, not far from it). I had two brothers, David (Duvidl) and Moshe (Moishale). David was the oldest of the three children, and Moshe was the youngest. From my father's side, my grandparents were called Gershon and Malka. My grandfather had a grocery store in Sniatyn, which was later taken over by his daughter (my aunt), Frede. She was married and had one son, Lembusch, and one daughter, Dora. In addition to his sister Frede, my father had also two brothers, Isaac and Abraham (whom we called Avrum). They were both tradesmen, like my father. Isaac lived also in Sniatyn, while Avrum had moved to Lemberg (Lvov). Isaac was a bit of a failure as a tradesman, and my grandfather had to support him financially all the time. Actually, he was a bit of a failure in every field. He was a good man but his wife made life impossible for him, and she did not even feed him properly. From my mother's side, I don't remember anymore my grandfather's name, as he died when I was very young. My grandmother was called Sima. They were living in the Carpatian mountains, between Viznica and Jabloniza. My grandfather owned some woods, and the family made a living cutting wood and sending it downstream on the Cheremosh river in order to be sold. We used to spend a great part of the summer up there in the Carpatian mountains. It took from Sniatyn half a day to get there with a carriage led by a horse. My father Chaim was also a merchant. He traded mainly with flour and to a certain extent also with beans. He would go and buy them in the countryside and would sell them back in Sniatyn. My father was a religious man, but not extremely observant. He died in 1933. My mother did not work, and she stayed at home. She had been considered when she was young a bit of a rebel, as she had refused to cut her hair and to wear a wig as the custom imposed. She perished in the holocaust. We were not rich but we were well-off. We lived in Sniatyn in front of a synagogue. This was not the main synagogue in Sniatyn, but a private house who had been transformed into a Synagogue. Our house was in the main street of Sniatyn, very close to the town hall. I had a great friend, called Yitele Kasvan. She was extremely intelligent. We used to study together all the time. Her grandmother had a grocery store, and we used to hide behind the counter. The Ukrainian peasants used to come and ask for the price of different foodstuff. When Yitele's grandmother told them, they used to offer her just half of the price she had indicated, so that she would always send them to hell. Then the discussion continued for a while with occasional swearwords until a satisfying agreement was reached by both sides. It was extremely amusing for us. I still remember the words she used to tell them.: Ver gehargit and Geh in dreerdaran . We laughed until we cried.

2. SCHOOL   My parents wanted me to go to the Heder, like my brothers. I refused categorically. One day the person responsible for bringing the pupils to the Heder came in order to bring me there, grabbed me in his arms and started to go towards the heder. I was a child but I was so enraged that I vomited upon him. I remember the scene as if it was yesterday. Since them, my parents gave up the idea of sending me to the Heder. My two brothers, on the contrary, had to go to the Heder every day, from 6 to 8 a.m., and then they had also to go to the public school for the rest of the morning. All the boys in Sniatyn had to go to the Heder, while in the case of girls it was more or less on a voluntary basis. Sniatyn did not have a high school. You could study there until you took the exam which gave access to high school. Most of the Jews in Sniatyn who wished to continue their studies, me and my brothers included, used to go to Lemberg in order to do so. Some of the teachers in Sniatyn were Jews and other were Poles. In Sniatyn the language of instruction at school was polish. The majority of the pupils were Jews, but there were also a certain number of Poles, mainly the sons and daughters of polish officials and clerks in the town. On the contrary, the Ukrainian peasants who lived in the surrounding countryside did not send their children to school, and as a results none of them was able to read or write. The relationship between us and the Poles was not easy at school. I remember that once a polish girl borrowed my mathematical exercise book. After a few days I asked her to give it back to me, but she did not. So I asked her again and again, until one day she insulted me and called me "Parsheve Jiduvka", which in polish means more or less filthy Jew. I was boiling with rage. The Poles were great anti-Semites, but the Ukrainians were even worse, probably because they had a lower cultural level. The children of the Jews did not socialize much with the children of the Poles, as Jews felt persecuted by the Poles. When the Poles passed in front of a church they used to cross themselves, while we often spitted on the ground, if nobody was looking at us. When I was six or seven years old, a school in Hebrew was opened in Sniatyn. There were some qualified teachers who came from big towns. The Zionist movement had began to have some influence even in Sniatyn. I decided to go there in order to learn Hebrew, because I was very interested. Some people left for Palestine from Sniatyn. A very good friend of my brother David went there, but he encountered unfortunately a tragic death as he was attacked and killed by the Arabs. I have learnt Hebrew very well, and I could speak it quite fluently, although I never seriously considered the possibility of making Aliya to Israel, as the idea of working in the fields the whole day did not appeal me at all.

3. SNIATYN   Sniatyn was not a big town, I guess you could call it a big shtetl. The Jews lived inside the town, while the outskirts were inhabited by the Rutenians, which were Ukrainian farmers. We had a Rutenian domestic help who slept in one room of our house, to be more precise she was a Hutsulka. The Jews were the great majority of the population in the town, but the surroundings were inhabited by Ukrainians . The Ukrainians used to get drunk every Sunday: they were paid once a week and used to spend their salary getting drunk with alcohol. You could see them on Sundays laying on the ground blind drunk, in Sniatyn itself or on the roads giving access to town. The synagogue was situated in the main road, but it was quite small and unimpressive. From the outside, it seemed a normal house, and you could hardly see that it was a synagogue.

 4. SOCIAL RELATIONS    I did know some Poles, but I did not consider them as friends and they did not consider us as friends either. The Poles despised us, but we despised them twice as much. The Poles had the power and we had not, there were no friendly relationship between us and the goyim. There was a state of tension between us and the Poles, but at the same time there was no violence, or at least I can not recall any act of violence. Before the first world war we were a part of the Austrian empire. We were faithful subject and we loved the emperor, Franz Josef, as we considered him as our protector from the Poles and the Ukrainians There were also a few German families in town. Actually, they were not living in Sniatyn but just outside it. The Austrian policy was to increase the number of German speaking people in its eastern parts of the empire, so a certain number of German families had settled outside the town. I cannot recall any pogrom. I think they used to happen on the Russian side of the border (we were the last town before the border with the Russian empire). The Austrian Emperor would not tolerate any pogrom, and this was one additional reason which increased our respect for him The main contacts between us and the goyim were established in the town market. The Ukrainian farmers came from the countryside to buy what they needed for their daily necessities. The Jews had to speak Ukrainian with them. My mother spoke Ukrainian fluently, although she did not speak polish. My father, on the contrary, spoke just a bit of Ukrainian, but could understand well polish although he did not speak it very good. They did not speak nor understand Hebrew, although it was used for the prayers and for religious purposes.

5. RELIGION    My family were kosher. My father would buy the meat only in a place where he could be absolutely sure that it would be kosher. I can not remember the name of the rabbi in Sniatyn, but he was not a very important rabbi. He was a "ruf", that is a second-rate rabbi. Sniatyn was too small to attract an important rabbi, whose maintenance would have been in any case problematic for such a small town. My parents were moderately religious, my father probably more than my mother. He would always wear the Kipa (Yarmulka) and a hat, so that he would never have his head uncovered not even when to took his hat off, in order to greet somebody. On the contrary, me and my brothers were not observance and my brothers would not wear the Kipa. Shabbos was very important, it was always celebrated in my house. It started on Friday evenings, my mother would lighten two silver candlesticks and we would recite the customary prayers, while my father would go to the synagogue on Friday and on Saturday. On Saturday nobody was doing any work. My mother used to cook on Friday everything we needed during Saturday, and would put it in the oven so that we could eat it the day after. At Yom Kippur my father and my brothers used to pray the whole day in the synagogue, with some short interruptions. We would fast the whole day, without touching any food or drink. This was the most important day of the year for those of my father's generation, but some of the young people would not celebrate Yom Kippur as they were starting to rebel against religion and the old way of life. There were many young people who had joined the Zionist movement, and other who supported the Bund. I never got interested in politics, but I have the impression that the Zionists were numerically more important than the Bundists During Pesach nobody would eat any bread, and we had a special set of table linen which we would bring down from the attic and use only at Pesach. We used to clean the whole house and celebrated the evening of the seder between family members. I remember that some of the wealthiest families in Sniatyn had two kitchens, one to be used for Pesach and one for the rest of the year. At Purim people used to come to our house with masks, they would sing and dance, but I did not pay too much attention to it because for me it was frankly quite boring. Weddings used to be celebrated with music and dances. Men would dance with women but they would not touch each other They would dance together holding each of them one of the two sides of a handkerchief. The marriage would normally be celebrated by a rabbi under a wedding canopy, but not always. People would dance the Polka and the Mazurka. The music was performed by the Klezmoirim. I remember one beautiful song I used to like very much, whose words were Ekh vil nisht zay a rebbe, ekh vil nisht leiden zwei pur tvil, ekh vil nisht a jeder zol mikh dill, ekh vil nisht zay kein rebbe (* dill means to pester, to bother) There were quite a good number of Hassidim in the town, although they were a minority, and my father was one of them. My brothers on the contrary never cared very much. The Hassidim in Sniatyn were not devoted to one rabbi in particular, but used to look at several famous rabbis for spiritual guidance. My father used to leave Sniatyn from time to time together with other Hassidim and they would travel by train to meet some famous rabbi in another town. I remember that a few times they went to Tarnopol. They used to sing in the train during the trip all the way through. They were frankly quite noisy and disturbed the other passengers. No wonder that the Poles could not stand us. My father and my mother got married without knowing each other Their marriage was arranged by a matchmaker. The matchmakers (they were called Shathn, and I used to despise them) used to combine marriages looking for families which had more or less the same wealth. This was the most important criteria but there were also other factors to take into account as well. For instance, if somebody in a family had converted to Christianity, the other members of the family were not considered a good match. They could get married only with great difficulty. It was considered a black spot on the whole family. Those who converted to Christianity did so for opportunistic and economic reasons, certainly not out of any religious conviction. They were very few in any case, and most left Sniatyn before the conversion. Those who did so and got married to Poles did not dare to come back afterwards. The very few who stayed in Sniatyn after the conversion usually severed their links with the Jews, or better, it was the Jews who severed their links with them.

6. LANGUAGES    My mother tongue was Yiddish, like all the other Jews in Sniatyn. I learned German during the first world war, when I went to school in Wien {Vienna}. I also learned Czech during the first world war, as we spent one year in a suburb of Prague. I could speak very well Polish, and I could also understand Ukrainian but could not speak it. The only one in the family to speak fluent Ukrainian was my mother. I had learned also Hebrew.

7. WAR    During the first world war, we were evacuated because the Russians had entered Sniatyn. At first we left for the Carpatian mountains, but later on we were moved to a suburb of Prague, I can still remember its name, Visochan. We arrived there by a cart trained by a horse, being sent there by the government who was also supporting us with a small monthly subvention. We were forced to leave because the first thing the Russians would do when they conquered a town was to kill the Jews living there. As a matter of fact the Poles living in Sniatyn did not have to run away, because they knew that the Russians would not bother them and would make life hard only for the Jews My father then was sent somewhere else in Bohemia for military service. Well, I would not call it military service, it was quite laughable, he would have never been able to carry a rifle, so he was told to do something else which had no relation whatsoever with weapons. His great problem was that he wanted to eat Kosher every day, so he used to have lunch and dinner at the private house of a Jewess, but he was not very happy both because she did not cook properly and the table linen was quite dirty. In Visochan I started to work with a sewing machine, while my brothers attended school. I learned to speak Czech very well. I remember that near to where we lived there was a railway and a grade crossing. I used to go there and waive my handkerchief towards the German soldiers who were going up to the front. Later on I went to Vienna (while the rest of my family stayed in Visochan) because in the meanwhile my grandparents had arrived there. I was in Vienna the day when the emperor Franz Josef died. I wanted to go to the funeral but my aunt Frede did not allow me to go and I was very disappointed. We regarded the Germans as a very civilized people while the Russian for us represented the pogroms and the persecutors of the Jews I remember also that my father was very proud because he had succeeded to bribe somebody so that my brothers would both be exempted from military service.

8. FOOD   Normally we would eat boiled meat and soup, but on Saturdays my mother would prepare the gefillte fisch. To say the truth I did not pay much attention to what my mother was cooking, I was not interested at all in food matters. I considered myself (and was considered as well) the intellectual of the family who could not pay attention to such issues.

9. OTHER FAMILIES    I remember somebody called Lenz. He was a shoemaker and had the age of my father. He had two children, one of them was called Shloime and the other I do not remember, They were twins and I used to play with them. Another family we were in touch with were the Messler. As far as important families were concerned, I remember a lawyer who was considered very influential in Sniatyn, he was called Goldstaub. My father did not have much to do with this lawyer because he was much too important for him, as my father was an ordinary tradesman. I remember also two families of traders who were quite wealthy: Blumer and Rosenkrantz. Somebody I also remember very well was Yidl Schnitzler, who was the local photographer. He was living in a flat owned by my father, and paid us a monthly rent.

10. EXPECTATIONS    All in all, the daily life in Sniatyn was not joyful at all. It was a village and I had better life expectations. I never even imagined the possibility of staying there for my whole life. I came to Italy in search of a better future. I chose Italy because I could never have entered a Polish university, as they applied strict quotas for the Jews I applied at the University of Lemberg but they did not accept me. In Germany too it was very tough for foreign Jews, I did not even apply because I knew beforehand that it was just a loss of time. In Vienna also it would have been useless. The choice of Italy was also dictated by the fact that there were two other young men from Sniatyn who were studying at the University in Bologna. One of them was called Linker, and the other one I do not remember. I also knew some young men from Sniatyn who had gone to France in order to study at the university, but in the end I opted for Italy mainly for financial reasons, as due to the favorable exchange rate Italy was much less expensive than France at the time (*in 1924). To say the truth I did not have any special passion for medicine, guess that I just wanted to be called a doctor.

NB: Mrs. Adlerstein died earlier this year (2001). The Sniatyn Landsmanshaft is  grateful to her, and to her grandson, Luca Ascoli, for the time and commitment that they both contributed to this important historical and cultural document.


F. Historical Documents Relating to Sniatyn Available as of 12/01.
The following information is now available to members of the society:

Landsmanshaften Material collected and held by Dr. Benjamin Solomowitz--

1. Constitution 1997 2. Constitution 1960 3. Membership Lists 1999, 1971 4. Certificate of Consolidation Sniatyner Sick and Benevolent Society and the Progressive Young Men's and Young Ladies' Benevolent Society into the United Sniatyner Sick and Benevolent Society Feb. 1960  5. S.K.U.V. 1935- 38th Annual Installation and Banquet with photographs 6. Society postcard annoucement-1946 (Greenberg)  7. Jewish Landsmanshaften From NY-2 entries in Yiddish 8.JGS Cemetery Report-
9 different Sniatyner plots in US 9. Various Society newsletters, correspondence from 1995 II. Photographs and Copies 1.Lens/Gottesman Sniatyn (Solomowitz) 2.Kupferman-Sniatyn 1933ì 3.SKUV Officers 1935 USAì 4.Lissak/Washkovitzer1938-39-Sniatyn (Lissak) 5.Lissak 1906  Sniatynì  6.Lissak 1921  USAì 7.Lissak/Axelrod/Kesler/Landscroner/Rauchwerger 1925 USA (Lissak) 8.Sniatyn- 15 old pictures from postcards (Martin, Lazar) 9.Teichberg Delikateson- Sniatyn (Felsenstein) 10.Old Cemetery Headstone of Eisencraft 1916 ñ Sniatyn (Hecht) 11.Banner 1stSniatyner Ladies' Auxillary (Feinberg) 12.17 photos of the old Jewish cemetery, now a parking lot ,with an accompanying written report of a Sept. 1998 visit to Sniatyn; 1959 monument to 2000 others killed ; Birnbaum house;new Jewish cemetery ; landscape(Lissak) 13. Masterpieces of Jewish Artî ñSniatyn- pictures of the old Jewish cemetery of intact tombstones 14.Sniatyn- original art work of wooden shul (Gruber) 15.Photographs of Sniatyn- 1992 visit 16.Sniatyn photographs (Felsenstein) 17.31 rolls of film of new Sniatyn Jewish cemetery, maps, paving stones, etc. 18.Adlerstein family photos(Ascoli) 19.Nachman family photos (Nachman)  20.Unknown-Abe Steinhorn  21.Fructer-Leiberman Photo Album from Etka Felsenstein 22.Herman- from Sandra Greenberg 23.Sniatyner Landsmanshaften Cemetery Plot Wellwood Cemetery, Long Island From Eli Hecht 24.Hecht family photographs from Sniatyn from Eli Hecht 25.Pictures from Matiyah Pozes 26.Pictures from Chaja Tepper

III. Documents -originals and copies 1.Birth Record  Lenz 1913  Sniatyn (Solomowitz) 2.Birth Record-Thau 1909  Sniatyn (Fahn) 3.Postcard from Sniatyn  Frumeth (Greenberg) 4.School Report Card-Sniatyn-Teitelbaumovna  1922 (Kulick) 5.Treaty between Polish King Stefan Batory and Jews of Sniatyn-1782 copy of a 1581 original in Latin (Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People) 6.Other documents 1780  In Polish ;1783in German from the above Archives 7.Translation of a document of a robber who prayed on the Jews of Sniatyn-Oct. 31,1734 8.Jews being humiliated before being shot-1943 9.Other documents 1781 in Russian, needs translation  10.Pinkas Bichor Cholim  Sniatyn, 1866 Hebrew/English 11.Letter from NYC Mayor Dinkins to Mayor of Sniatyn 1992 (Solomowitz) 12.German Police Report of Jewish Deportation to Belzec (Nachman) 13.Snyatyn-Encyclopedia Judaica Entry  14.Sniatyn- Jewishgen Shtetl Finder entry 1 5.Lissack Letters 1938 Sniatyn From Joe Lissack 16.Passport 1912 Mendel Kelner Hecht from Eli Hecht IV. Lists of Names 1. List of Emigrants from Sniatyn who are Found in Israelî approximately 250 names and addresses in Hebrew/English 2.New Jewish Cemetery-Sniatyn first 504 gravestones transcribed from 31 rolls of film (20 rolls completed) in Hebrew/English 3.Kaganís Prenumeraten- Lists of Holy books with names of Sniatyner Jewish sponsors ñHebrew a.lists of names from two books of the above list,17names +3 names 4.Galician Business Directory-1891 English (JewishGen) 5.Polish Business Directory-1925 French/Polish 6.ìA Land and Its Scholarsî 1934 Sniatyn 4 entries  English (The Galitzianer Vol. 5 No.4 Summer 1998) 7.Sniatyn Tax (Voter) Lists-1818,1823,1870,1875on microfilm, partially copied (The Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People) 8.Index of 1870 Sniatyner Tax List of Jewish sounding names 9.Mt. Hebron CemeteryNY-1923 List of members of the Landsmanshaftenon the gate 10.List of Births-1830-1835 Sniatyn (The Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People) 11.Sniatyner Landsmanshaften names of those in the Wellwood, L.I. Cemetery compiled by Eli Hecht V. Oral/Written Histories/Questionnaire 1.Keila Adlerstein-1998 written (Ascoli) 2.Henry Glick-1998 video partial transcribed 3. Louis Rosenkranz  video and oral tapes-partially transcribed 4.  Wolfe Nachman-1996 video 5. Matiyah Pozes 6. Chaja Tepper 7. Sholomo Pesser 8. Rachel Vered 9.Yosef Shertzer VI. Family Trees