Book of Bursztyn (Burshtyn, Ukraine)

Burshtyn is in Western Ukraine, about 57 miles southeast of Lviv and about 107 miles from the Polish border town of Medyka. The Jewish community there can be dated to the early 17th century. The first synagogue in the town was erected in the mid-18th century.

Like many Jewish towns in the region, Burshtyn came under the rule of several countries. It was part of the Polish-Lithuanian empire until 1772 before passing to Austria-Hungary. During the tumultuous period of World War I, it was occupied briefly by Russia, flipped back to Austria-Hungary and then to the short-lived West-Ukrainian People's Republic before being absorbed into the reconstituted nation of Poland between 1918 and 1939. After the German occupation, it became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine until becoming independent in 1991.

Around 2,000 Jews lived in Burshtyn at the turn of the 20th century, a number that dipped in the wake of World War I during which the town suffered significant damage, which is recounted in the book. Heavy battles took place around the city and a large number of Jews fled westward to refugee camps in Bremen, Moravia, and Austria. Some returned following the war.

Death and destruction struck again with the arrival of World War II and the Germans. The handful of those who survived the Nazi horrors recount the terrible sufferings by the Jews of Burshtyn in this Memorial Book: they describe the lives of their families in the town's ghetto and later in the ghettos of Bukaczowce and Rohatyn. Those who were not killed there met their end in the extermination camps of Majdanek and Auschwitz. A long section is comprised of photographs and names of those who perished.

The book also provides a rich picture of life in the town: its religious traditions, the livelihoods of its people and the education of its children. As one passage says, the role of the book was not to be merely a memorial candle for those who met terrible deaths, but to speak of the town's Jewish common folk, so that future generations would understand what was destroyed.