Solotvin - A story of a Galician Schtetl

Street in Solotvin, postcard.
Solotvin cemetery
The market Place in Solotvin, photograph, 1930's
Rabbi Yoel Babad and family, 1930's

Solotvin Economics

The economic life of Solotvin's Jews was characteristic of the Jews of eastern Galicia for generations: the majority of Solotvin's Jews wroked in trade, as peddlers or as craftsman. The circumstances of a small town did not provide many opportunities for economic growth.
 
In the 18th century, there was a salt manufacturing plant, but the plant closed down in 1788.
 

 

The period of prosperity which the community enjoyed at the end of the 19th century reached its end with the beginning of the First World War. The immense destruction left by the Russian soldiers who took control of the city led to the complete impoverishment of the community and to the migration of its Jews to other towns. The Jewish population never really recovered economically throughout the period of Polish rule, and the remnants of the formerly thriving community turned, in the period between the two world wars, into a small group of Jews who barely made ends meet. Some even received aid from the Joint and by former members of the community who had made their way overseas. A charity fund started in 1929 in order to efficiently support tradesmen and craftsmen ceased to exist in 1933, and its deficit stood at 2,500 zloty.