JEWISH GALICIA & BUKOVINA

Promoting the study and commemoration of the cultural heritage

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The Jews
It is not clear exactly when Jews arrived in Baranów, but it seems to have been very early. There are attestations to Jews in Baranów in documents from the 14th century. The Jews settled throughout the city but were concentrated near the market square. They engaged primarily in the trade of grain. The Jewish community ceased to exist in the mid-17th century, after the uprisings of 1648-9 and the Swedish invasion in the 1660s. But the community was re-established in the early 1700s, and it developed relatively rapidly. By 1765, there were already 300 people in the community, and in the surrounding villages there were another 135 Jews who belonged to the community. During this period, a wooden synagogue was built, which was considered astonishingly beautiful. It burned down in 1896 and was rebuilt in 1899. A Jewish cemetery was dedicated in the city, and it served nearby Jewish communities, including Osiek, as well.
Upon the Partition of Poland, the same taxes and decrees imposed on the rest of Galician Jewry was imposed on the Jews of Baranów. The community became indebted to the authorities, who demanded the payment of taxes in 1784 under severe threats. In 1789, the community was required to appoint a rabbi, who would be responsible, inter alia, for the establishment of a German-style normal school superintended by Herz Homberg, for maintaining a population registry, and more. There is no extant information of the actual establishment of this school. At that time, the Austrian authorities also tried to create Jewish agricultural settlements, an attempt that largely failed. However, two Jewish families from Baranów were sent to an agricultural settlement in a nearby village, where they were indeed absorbed into the agricultural sector.
At this time, as noted, Baranów appointed its first rabbi. The city’s first known rabbi was Rabbi Yaakov Shimon Ḥayim Deutsch, a disciple of the Seer of Lublin, who later went on to serve as a rabbi in Żelechów, Puławy (Pilov), and Radzyń Podlaski (Radzin). He was succeeded by a rabbi whose identity is unknown, who did not receive a regular salary; the ḥazan likewise made a living from the donations of community members. However, in the 1840s, Rabbi Yisrael Horowitz, the son of Rabbi Eliezer, the Hasidic rabbi of nearby Dzhikev (Tarnobrzeg), became rabbi of Baranów. He served until the 1870s and was succeeded by his son, Rabbi Avraham Simḥa. When the latter immigrated to Eretz Yisrael in 1909, his eldest son, Yitzḥak, inherited the post, followed by his grandson, Rabbi Avigdor, who perished in the Holocaust.
The Jewish population of Baranów rose throughout the 19th century and took a leading role in trade and crafts, with the exception of shoemaking, the expertise of Baranów’s non-Jewish population. The Jews of Baranów also took part in the city’s political leadership. From the time that Jews attained equal rights in the 1860s until the end of World War I, Baranów had two Jewish mayors.
Zionist activities began in the early 20th century, and a branch of Mizrachi was active in the city. It is important to note that despite the Hasidic character of the city, it also had quite a few Maskilim, active Communists, and a local writer for Der Israelit. The decline in Baranów’s status in the grain trade led to economic distress for Jewish traders and brokers. In the late-19th century, many of them migrated elsewhere or overseas. The occupation of itinerant salesman became much less attractive after the 1905 murder and robbery of a Jewish merchant of agricultural products in nearby villages.
With the outbreak of World War I, Baranów was occupied by the Russians, and Jewish residents withdrew into the Austrian heartland. Once the city was retaken by the Austrian army, not all the Jews who lived there before the war returned. At the end of the war, Polish nationalist elements and local farmers began to rob and physically harm the Jews. To protect the residents, Jewish soldiers from the city, who had just returned from the battlefield and some of whom were armed, stood alongside brave men who did not let the masses harm them of their property. The soldiers of General Haller also attacked Jews throughout Poland during the period before the re-establishment of Polish independence. However, the local militia of Baranów did not come to the Jews’ defense, leading to the resignation of its Jewish mayor, Yirmiyahu Leibovich.
The generally poor economic situation in Poland, and the strain placed on Jewish finances by the new Polish government, led to the emigration of Jews from Baranów. In 1921, there were c. 30 businesses that provided work mainly for family members plus a few wage-earners. In addition, some Jews continued as peddlers, some were farmers, and some were wagon-drivers. Due to the difficult economic situation, a Jewish Credit Bank was established for merchants and craftsmen. Other benevolent societies were also established: a charity fund for the city’s poor, and a soup kitchen for needy children that was established after the city flooded in 1932, with some help from the municipality. In about 1936, the Polish government built military industrial plants in the Baranów region, and this improved the economic situation of all residents of the region. Between the two world wars, political and Zionist activism of every stripe continued. A library, club, and drama groups were established in the city, as well as a Hebrew-language supplementary school, whose students were mostly girls.
World War II
When World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, people began fleeing the city. When the German army entered the city, they began abducting Jews and conscripting them into forced labor details. In addition, the Jews were required to provide the Nazi soldiers with anything of value, money, or scarce food products. A Judenrat was established, headed by Mordechai Gross. He systematically organized Jewish slave labor and was the address for the demands of the Nazi authorities. Some townspeople were sent to work in camps near the city, and some were employed to maintain roads and infrastructure and doing agricultural work on the farms of Volksdeutsche – ethnically German Poles.
At the beginning of 1942, there began the mass deportations from the area to labor camps in the area, and in June 1942, a closed ghetto was established in Baranów. Jews from nearby towns were expelled there. The Jews of Baranów understood that the destruction of the community was at hand, and many of them prepared hiding places. About three weeks later, the order to deport the Jews from the city arrived. The German police and Polish auxiliary forces surrounded the city and prevented the Jews from fleeing. However, two Polish policemen helped Jews escape the ghetto. A selection took place at the market square, and c. 30 elderly Jews were taken out by wagon and murdered in the Jewish cemetery. The rest of the Jews were herded onto cattle cars and sent to Dębica. From there, the able-bodied were sent to work in nearby camps, and the rest of the Jews, together with Jews from many other cities who had been corralled into Dębica, were sent to the Belzec death camp. The property of Baranów’s Jews was plundered by locals, the beid midrash was dismantled, and its contents sold to local farmers. After the war, one survivor returned to the city, but the hostility he experienced caused him to leave.

(Roee Goldshmidt)

Sources:
Pinkasei HaKehilot, vol. 3, Baranów, pp. 59-62.
Sefer Yizkor Baranów (Barniv), edited by N. Blumenthal, Jerusalem: 1964.