Deliatyn. The Jewish Cemetery and Its Chronicle

In Europe, Jewish cemeteries are not merely included in tourist routes — Jewish necropolises are entered on the UNESCO World Heritage lists. In Ukraine, the mass Jewish burial sites are places of remembrance of a particular person, and also of the Jewish people as a whole and the events bound up with it. Kirkuty — as Jewish cemeteries are called in Western Ukraine — are the cultural heritage of their communities and a part of the history of our country. The Deliatyn Jewish necropolis is in the northern part of the town, west of the main road, the H09, on Pohribnych Street.

 

Deliatyn, Ivano-Frankivsk region. The Jewish cemetery

From the Liubizhnia railway platform to the kirkut is a distance of 600 metres. The resting place of the Jewish population is enclosed by a new concrete fence, 2 metres high. Evidently there were not enough sections for the whole perimeter, some 500 metres long, and part of the area was fenced off with chain-link mesh.

The surviving monuments recall the vanished Jewish community.

Inside the cemetery, posts have been set up to fence the graves off, in due course, from the private farm whose horned charges can wander freely about this city of the dead. There is as yet no proper wicket gate onto the grounds; the 2 entrances on the western and southern sides are firmly closed with picket fencing and metal bars. I found no notices with the telephone number of a watchman or an administrator, and no options for a legitimate way into the cemetery remained. Later I understood that this sturdy barrier had been put up to prevent vandalism, dumping and the grazing of cattle. For about an hour I walked around the enclosing wall in search of a way in and in the hope of help from passers-by. On the eastern side, wooden sheds cling to the tombs, in which hungry and unmilked goats were bleating. There is an entrance to the kirkut through the goat farm, but the owner of the animals still did not appear, and I did not dare cross the boundaries of the ranch on my own. "Surely somebody must come — it's already gone seven," I mused, watching the lonely goats. The sun was climbing swiftly up the sky; one nanny goat came out of the shed, and after her the whole startled herd scattered across the yard. The horned company burst into many-voiced song, but the owner of the farm was in no hurry to attend the concert. At last a local resident appeared from the direction of the street, and it was to him that I turned for help. The man of Deliatyn responded gladly and unwound the wire, fastened to the concrete posts, on the metal bars, which made it possible to enter the kirkut. To my question, "Why is it so deserted in the streets — no cars, no people?", my rescuer replied, "Well, Ukrainians love both to eat and to sleep."

 

Deliatyn. The wicket gate on the southern side of the Jewish cemetery

Deliatyn stands on the Prut River, 42 kilometres south of Ivano-Frankivsk. Until 1939 the small town was under Polish rule, having earlier been part of Austria-Hungary. Residents of Jewish nationality kept shops and workshops and engaged in trade. From 1 July 1941 until 1944 Deliatyn was occupied by the Nazis. The Second World War sowed grief, death and suffering. During the Holocaust there were about 5,000 victims among the Jewish population. Witnesses to the mass murder recall that all the Jews were arrested and brought to their deaths by lorry, and were also driven on foot. A German soldier would measure out the size of the grave, the Jewish men dug the grave in the forest, and the women waited. All the while the fascists smoked and laughed. In Deliatyn there were five operations to exterminate the Jews, carried out by a German mobile unit and the security police. According to the archives, there was no ghetto in Deliatyn, but there is testimony of a single ghetto located in the centre, enclosed by a fence. The laws of the ghetto obliged the Jews to move to a designated area, and leaving it without permission was punishable by death. Those who helped the Jews to hide, or who did not report such cases, were also brutally dealt with. Representatives of the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative established the approximate number of gravestones — about 500 surviving matzevot, the oldest dating from 1893.

The last burial date recorded is 1940.

 

In all likelihood Deliatyn had its own workshop for making memorial slabs, since they differ in the properties of the stone and the style of their painting from the gravestones in the Jewish burial grounds of neighbouring Nadvirna and Mykulychyn. On the funerary steles, epitaphs and quotations from the Bible and other sacred books are carved in highly artistic relief. Bas-reliefs of birds, animals, religious symbols and floral ornament tell, in coded form, of the personality and character of those buried here. Most often you meet the image of a lion, which personifies the Jews. A bird signifies the guardian of the home and is found on the graves of women.

 

Not on every portal can the inscriptions and symbolic images still be made out. With rain, wind and frost, time wears away the ornamental and calligraphic designs. In the western part of the cemetery, set on the slope of a ravine, the matzevot have toppled, probably under the influence of rain and spring waters. A great many gravestones are broken; heaps of stumps point to acts of vandalism. The scattered fragments resemble the tragic fates of the dead, and the sorrowful scene calls to mind the parable of a time to gather stones.

 

Deliatyn. The Jewish cemetery. Some of the monuments are broken

In the northern part there is a monument in the shape of a pyramid; the plaque and the upper gravestone slab of this double burial are missing.

Until quite recently, judging by satellite images and the sawn-off stumps, the cemetery was drowning in wild thickets. For now the area has been cleared, the young growth cut down, the branches carried off, the dump destroyed. But the small household rubbish, and the shards of glass that glint and crunch underfoot, prove that the litter on this field of God did not appear of its own accord — someone, over a long stretch of time, hauled their refuse here in quantity.

On the inner side of the fence an information plate has been placed, its inscription made in Hebrew. In all likelihood a Jewish organisation helped to put the memorial site in order. The Deliatyn Jewish cemetery is larger than the kirkuty in Nadvirna and Mykulychyn, and it has been fortunate in its benefactors.

 

Deliatyn. The kirkut. The information plate

On my way back from the cemetery, I set the wicket gate back in place and twisted the wire tight again, just as it had been before I came.

Coordinates of the kirkut: 48°31'59"N 24°37'32"E

Related stories: Delyatyn. The Jewish Past: Places of Memory · Mykulychyn. The Kirkut, a Neglected Jewish Heritage Site · Nadvirna. The Jewish Necropolis, Off the Tourist Route · Tatariv. The Kirkut. A Place of Memory and Sorrow · Yasinia. The Kirkut, a Monument of Jewish History · Shchyrets. The Kirkut, Heritage of a Galician Town

This story is also available in Ukrainian: Делятин. Єврейський цвинтар. Частина історичного літопису євреїв в Україні