Wielkie Oczy - guide book

The settlement of Wielkie Oczy, which is located at two large ponds giving it its name, was founded in 1520s. Soon, it became the property of Piotr Mohyła, the future Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv, founder of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and of his brother Mojżesz, a candidate for the throne of Moldova. In 1671, the next town owner Andrzej Modrzejowski obtained the Magdeburg rights for Wielkie Oczy and it was probably then that Jews started to settle in the town.

Jewish people inhabited the majority of houses listed in the 1752 census. Among them was Gdal Szymonowicz, who resided in the town hall building and was a leaseholder of two mills, a winery and an inn in the town hall. Other Jewish residents of Wielkie Oczy included: Moszko Szawłowic – a baker, Szymon Gierszunowicz – a tailor, Mendel Berkowicz – a shopkeeper, Judka Erszkowicz – a salt-trader, and Majer Rzeźnik.

 

Rabbi Mordechai ben Shmuel of Kutno

Mordechai of Kutno (born about 1715 – died after 1772), Shmuel's son, was the first known by name and the most prominent rabbi of Wielkie Oczy. As a young man, he distinguished himself with his acuity, godliness and love for studying the Scriptures. He came to Wielkie Oczy in about 1735, invited by the local kahal to take the post of a rabbi. Known as an ardent follower of the strict instructions of the Law of Moses, he defined and introduced many religious rules in the Jewish community. He wrote, among others, Dower shalom (Heb. ‘Bard of peace’) and comments on the Book of Psalms and Book of Prophets. These, however, have not survived to our times. Rabbi Mordechai’s renown rests on his theological treatise Shaar-Melech (Heb. ‘The Royal Gate’), which is a collection of 13 theological and moral essays connected with the dates and holidays in the Jewish calendar. The first edition of this treatise was published in Żółkiew in 1762, and the last – so far – in Canada in 1997.

 

Synagogue

A house of prayer must have already existed at the beginning of the 18th century, its existence being recorded in the documents of 1735 and 1763, which note that even the oldest inhabitants no longer remembered when it had been built. In the mid 19th century, there were two masonry prayer houses in Wielkie Oczy: an “old” Beit Hamidrash and a synagogue, both of which burnt down during World War I. The synagogue was built anew in 1910. The prayer houses in Wielkie Oczy were seriously damaged during the town fire and then rebuilt in 1927 according to the project of Jan Sas Zubrzycki, who was famous for designing many churches and public buildings, and with the money received from an American immigrant Eliyahu Gottfried. The Beit Hamidrash was pulled down during World War II, while the surviving synagogue building served as a warehouse of the commune cooperative after the war. Abandoned in the 1990s, it was entered into the register of monuments in 2009. Between 2011 and 2013, the Wielkie Oczy Commune Office renovated the former synagogue, and now the building houses the Commune Public Library and the Memorial Exhibition Room.

Just behind the market square, on the southern side, there was a synagogue and an old prayer house, which was called Beit Hamidrash. This was an old masonry one-storey building, with the bimah in the middle and the Torah Ark on its eastern wall. All around were wooden tables and benches. On the shelves were the holy books for the study of the Talmud and for prayer. On the tables stood candlesticks used to illuminate the interior. Most space was taken up by a large brick heating stove. Behind it, a man called Lippe had his bed. His job was to fire the stove in winter and clean the place. Prayers were held in this house every day, also on Sabbaths and holidays. It was possible to come in to read and study the Talmud at any time of the day. Women would go to the women's section climbing up the wooden stairs and they took part in the Sabbath and holiday prayers sitting in the balconies that overlooked the main hall. Across the road was a synagogue. It was a large white one-storey building, the pride of the local Jewish community. Prayers were held there only on Sabbaths. In winter, it was cold inside because the building was not heated. Weddings took place on the steps of the main entrance, where a chuppah was erected. Also, the funeral processions stopped there on their way to the cemetery to say the prayer. There were windows of coloured glass in the synagogue and a festive cold prevailed there. The bimah made of wrought iron had a large seven-branched candelabrum. On this platform, facing eastwards stood the chazan, or whoever led the prayer. Next to him, there was the rabbi’s place. In my memory, I see a curtain, a parochet of purple velvet embroidered with golden Hebrew letters which covered the Torah Ark, that is a sacred chest where the Torah scrolls were kept.

 

Transformation of Isaac

In 1806, young Hasid Isaac Erter (1792-1851) got married to Chaja Sarah, a daughter of the respected family in Wielkie Oczy, and moved into his in-laws’ place. Soon, he befriended Joseph Tarler, who came to live in Wielkie Oczy. This well-educated erudite who could speak several languages introduced Isaac to the medieval Jewish philosophy and literature of the Jewish Enlightenment. As a result, young Isaac left the town to see the world. He became a doctor and a writer, as well as one of the leading representatives of the Haskalah movement in Galicia. He is the author of satires written in Hebrew. The most famous one, Gilgul Nefesh (Heb. ‘Transmigration of the Soul’), describes successive incarnations of: a Hasid, frog, cantor-drunkard, fish, tax collector, owl, Kabbalist, mole, corruptible gravedigger, dog, jealous rabbi, fox, a Hasidic tzaddik, donkey, doctor, turkey, and finally a well-connected and foolish rich man who tells the writer of his previous incarnations. Erter's collected works were published posthumously under the title of Ha-Tsofeh le-vet Yisra’el (Heb. ‘The Watchman of the House of Israel’, Vienna 1858) and reprinted many times. “My eyes did not lit up in this darkness” – Erter wrote later about his Hasidic upbringing but in fact, it is in the small traditional town of Wielkie Oczy that he underwent intellectual and spiritual transformation.

 

Photographer

In 1842, Baruch Henner was born in Wielkie Oczy. In 1864, he opened a photographic studio in the market square in Przemyśl. As a young boy, Baruch went to a religious school but this did not prevent him from attending a secular school and from taking up photography and graphic arts, in which became an outstanding professional and artist. He learnt from the famous French photographer Louis Lumière, among others, and became well-known also in other countries. He held the prestigious title of Court Photographer at the Imperial Court in Vienna. His works won medals at the exhibitions in Vienna (1873), London (1874), and Lwów (1877). Baruch Henner died in Przemyśl, on 2 February 1926.

 

Industrialist and philanthropist

The mid 19th century saw the growth of trading activity in Wielkie Oczy, with most shops run by Jews. The town had also 2 tanneries, 2 brick factories, a steam mill, a slaughterhouse, 4 distilleries, and almost 50 craftsmen. Yet, the proverbial “Galician poverty” forced many inhabitants to emigrate. One of them was Eliyahu Gottfried, born in Wielkie Oczy on 21 February 1859 into the poor family of Baruch and Szajndel Gottfrieds. In 1890, he emigrated to the US in search of work and a better life, and settled in New York, together with his wife Rachel. He set up a small bakery, which has become one of the largest US baking companies, the Gottfried Baking Company. He was also a vice-president of the American Palestine Line Inc., a ship company providing passenger service between New York and Haifa. Eliyahu Gottfried was actively involved in the Zionist movement, spending considerable sums of money on this activity and travelling frequently to Palestine. Moreover, he was a well-known philanthropist, who financed, for example, the rebuilding of Wielkie Oczy synagogue, which had been destroyed during the war in 1915. Gottfried visited Wielkie Oczy on several occasions and helped poor Jewish families there. Having suffered from a serious heart disease, he died on 6 February 1932 and was buried in the New York cemetery of Mount Carmel. He had 7 children.

 

Everyday life

The house where I was born on 4 February 1924 stood in the market square. It was a one-storey building made of red brick and covered with tiles. This house was built by my grandfather. All the houses in the market square were one-storey, made of brick or wood. In almost every one of them was some shop, or a workshop, a bakery or a shoemaker's. And all of them belonged to Jews. The house of Mrs. Linowa, which was next to ours, was the only exception. In that house lived a Polish family, which manufactured and sold sausages and meat products. The only two-storied building in the square housed the offices of the local council. Grass grew on the square and a dirt road went across it. In the middle of the square was a well with a wheel. From there water was carried in pails to the houses. There were Acacia trees growing around the square.

Streets without names went from the square. The street that led to the neighbouring town was called “The Street to Krakowiec” and so on. One of the streets ran to the Jewish cemetery, another one to the Catholic cemetery. In these streets were small houses with roofs of asphalt, tiles or thatch, where farmers lived. These were Poles and Ukrainians, who owned the surrounding fields. Farm buildings were located close to their houses. Jewish people, who worked as tailors, tinkers or cattle traders, also lived in some of these houses. The town’s population consisted of Catholic Poles, Greek-Catholic Ukrainians, and Jews. The Poles spoke Polish, the Ukrainians spoke Ukrainian, and the Jews spoke Yiddish. Most of them, of course, knew also Polish and Ukrainian.

There was no electricity in Wielkie Oczy. We lit oil lamps at night. There were no lights in the streets. The mill was the only place with electricity. There was no plumbing, either. Water was stored in buckets. Toilets were outside the houses and you had to go there to relieve yourself. This was a small problem in summer, but much bigger in winter. There were no paved roads or side-walks. When it rained, people walked in the mud. Also, horse-drawn carts rolled in the mud, as no road was paved. Just sand. Only in a few places, road sides were covered with planks for pedestrians; we called these “trottoirs.” We used wood to heat stoves. We did not know coal. The only means of transport was the horse-drawn cart. The nearest railway station,which was situated in the county town of Jaworów, was about 20 km (12 miles) away.

According to the 1921 census, the population of Wielkie Oczy was over 20% smaller than at the beginning of the 20th century, this being a result of the devastation brought about by World War I. 274 houses and 1,668 residents were recorded in the census, including 806 Poles (48.3%), 547 Jews (32.8%), and 314 Ukrainians (32.8%). The town’s rebuilding was slow and as a result, it lost its position of regional commercial centre in favour of the nearby town of Krakowiec. The Jewish residents of Wielkie Oczy joined organisations in Krakowiec, such as a credit cooperative of the Central Union of Credit Cooperatives. In 1935, Wielkie Oczy lost its status of a town. The late 1930s saw a growth of anti-Semitic sentiments and national tensions that were commonplace all over the Republic of Poland. One such anti-Semitic incident is described in Mieczysław Dobrzański's book, Gehenna of Poles in the Rzeszów Land 1938-1948 (Wrocław 2002): “On a high fence that surrounded the property of a Jewish baker in Wielkie Oczy, one night in 1938 someone wrote a slogan in large metre-high black letters that read »Jews to Palestine«. We saw it in the morning as we were going to school. A group of Jews was standing in front of it and they were very moved.”

 

Jewish cemetery

The cemetery was established about 300 metres away from the synagogue, at the street that went south from the town square towards Krakowiec. It had been in existence since at least the second half of the 18th century. Today, around 100 gravestones can be found at the cemetery, but its size suggests that it was a burial place of up to 3,000 people.

During World War II, Jews that had been hiding to escape the April 1942 deportation, were executed at the cemetery and then buried in mass graves. The cemetery was devastated by the Germans and after the war, local residents took away the Matzevot to use them for different purposes. In 1978, an obelisk was erected on the edge of the cemetery near Krakowska St. This was the site of the mass grave of 41 Jews from Wielkie Oczy that had been shot here during World War II. In 2000-2001, the works were started to clear the cemetery from wild growing plants, put up a fence around it, gather the Matzevot found throughout Wielkie Oczy, and erect a monument commemorating the local Jewish community.

 

The last rabbi

Jon Teomim was born in Wielkie Oczy in 1885, as one of the seven sons of long-time town’s rabbi Naftali Hertz Teomim. After his father's death in 1916, he took over his position and served as a rabbi in the inter-war period. He was a supporter of the Tzadik of Belz. He held the honorary title of Gabbay of Eretz Yistrael, i.e. the one responsible for collecting donations to aid Jewish settlement in what was then Palestine. In 1943, he was murdered by the Germans, together with other town Jews.

 

World War II and extermination of Jews        

The German troops invaded Wielkie Oczy on 12 September 1939. After two weeks, they gave up most of the land east of the San River, to the Soviet Union. The Red Army entered the town on 28 September 1939 and in November 1939, the area was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, its inhabitants becoming the USSR citizens. The administration and economy were organised on the Soviet model, which meant the dominant role of the party, the NKVD presence and deportations of inhabitants (since 10 February 1940).

The German-Soviet war began on the night of 21 June 1941, with an attack of the German forces along the German-Soviet border. The Germans entered Wielkie Oczy on the next day, destroying and looting the place, forcing Jews to work, and killing them in individual and mass executions. In August 1941, the Judenrat was established. In June 1942, the Jews of Wielkie Oczy were deported to ghettos in Jaworów (274) and Krakowiec (168). In December 1942, those from the Krakowiec ghetto were relocated to Jaworów and on 16 April 1943, all of them were murdered by the Nazis.

 

Present day

Today, Wielkie Oczy is a village with a population of about 800, located a few kilometres from the Krakowiec border-crossing with Ukraine. A few agritourism farms operate in the area, and the bicycle trail Green Velo runs through the village.

Authors: Paweł Sygowski, Emil Majuk