Tatariv. The Kirkut. A Place of Memory and Sorrow

The history of Tatariv is closely interwoven with the history of the Jewish community of this Carpathian village, whose story reaches back to the 17th century.

 

Tatariv, Ivano-Frankivsk region. The kirkut

The Jewish cemetery in Tatariv (Nadvirna district, Ivano-Frankivsk region) lies in the central part of the village, south-east of the H 09 road and Nezalezhnosti Street.

 

Tatariv. Ivano-Frankivsk region. The Jewish cemetery

The Jews were buried on a rise on the left bank of the Prut.

 

The plot of roughly a tenth of a hectare is bounded by the fences of private homesteads and of the Tatariv gymnasium.

Tatariv. The grounds of the Jewish cemetery

A few horizontal slabs without inscriptions and a multitude of fragments survive in the old necropolis. The remains of the matzevot have sunk into the ground and become overgrown with thick grass that is hard to mow; the growth is kept down by the cows grazing here in spring and summer.

Tatariv. Gravestones at the kirkut

It is impossible to establish the date the cemetery was founded or the dates of the burials. The first written mention of the village dates from 1671. It is known that at the end of the interwar period Tatariv had 1,190 inhabitants, 300 of them Jews. The kirkut was marked on a Polish map of 1939. In 2022 the Ivano-Frankivsk religious community of Orthodox Judaism, with the financial support of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine, unveiled a memorial in the centre of the cemetery in the form of a black marble stele. Its inscription is in Yiddish, Ukrainian and English.

 

Tatariv. The memorial at the kirkut

In 1921 the Jewish community numbered 121 people. The Jews of Tatariv murdered in the Holocaust were buried at the kirkut in the neighbouring village of Mykulychyn.

Coordinates: 48°20'29"N 24°34'45"E

Related stories: Mykulychyn. The Kirkut, a Neglected Jewish Heritage Site · Deliatyn. The Jewish Cemetery and Its Chronicle · Nadvirna. The Jewish Necropolis, Off the Tourist Route · Delyatyn. The Jewish Past: Places of Memory

This story is also available in Ukrainian: Татарів. Кіркут. Місце пам'яті та скорботи зниклої єврейської громади