Discussion
Much has been written about the city of Bruno Schulz, yet no one has written about the Jewish community that constituted over 40% of the city's total population alongside the two other national groups—Poles and Ukrainians. In this presentation, I address the development of Jews during their most favorable period in the Second Polish Republic and their destruction during World War II, which led to a 98% decline in the Jewish population. The territory of Drohobycz changed state allegiance several times within the first fifty years of the twentieth century: until 1918 it belonged to the Habsburg Empire, then briefly became part of Ukraine, and in 1923, following the Treaty of Riga, became part of the restored Polish state—the Second Polish Republic. After 1939, it became part of territories occupied by the Soviet Union and the Third Reich, and after liberation, as a result of the post-war border arrangements, became part of Soviet Ukraine.
Through the lens of the Jewish community, I present the city of Drohobycz in a completely new socio-economic context. Through detailed research, I trace Jewish development in all aspects while simultaneously questioning the established and mythical perception of the city through the Schulzian perspective. The interwar period in Drohobycz—a provincial city of entirely non-provincial character that was the most important center in the broader Oil Basin region—was characterized by significant developmental dynamism across multiple dimensions, partly resulting from general transformations within the Jewish community of Europe over recent centuries.
The Second Polish Republic, and Drohobycz specifically, as witnesses attest, represented a golden period of Jewish development despite numerous difficulties, antisemitism, and discrimination. The Drohobycz Jewish community particularly distinguished itself regionally through an extraordinary openness to the world, recognizing the advantages of assimilation and moving beyond the confines of the Jewish ghetto. Simultaneously, Drohobycz witnessed the remarkably vigorous development of multi-faceted Zionist movements that promoted Jewish identity as a distinct nationality rather than merely a religious community. Numerous cultural and political associations, as well as Jewish activity in the City Council, indicate the city's atypicality within the general historical-sociological perspective of provincial backwardness. The internal division of Jews was full of different attitudes, from orthodox to assimilated into the Polish environment. The Holocaust marked the end of Jewish development in Drohobych; few survived, and those who did fled to Poland and beyond. In my presentation, I emphasize various elements of development and their disappearance after 1945, showing the city's uniqueness within the region and the history of Polish Jews in both local and general contexts. I draw on archives and personal accounts.
