Between World War I and World War II, the multiethnic city of Lwów was in eastern Poland and home to one of the country’s largest Jewish communities. Jews made up about one-third of Lwów’s population, numbering around 100,000 people on the eve of World War II.
The diversity of Lwów’s Jews was reflected in many aspects of their everyday lives. Most Jews in Lwów were multilingual and communicated in different languages, depending on the context. For example, many people spoke Yiddish at home, but German or Polish at work or school. Jews held a variety of occupations or professions. They also joined a wide range of political, social, and community organizations, including labor unions. Jewish children could attend public or private schools. Some private schools were affiliated with specific Jewish religious orientations. Others were affiliated with Jewish political parties.
Between World War I and World War II, dozens of synagogues and prayer houses served the religious needs of Lwów’s diverse Jewish community. This postcard from around 1917 shows the Progressive Synagogue, also known as the Temple, in Lwów. Built in the 1840s and originally named the German-Israelite Prayer House, it served the city’s progressive Jewish community. From 1904, the synagogue’s rabbi regularly preached in Polish. The Nazis destroyed the synagogue in 1941.
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This portrait from around 1922 depicts three generations of the Menaker family. The hairstyles and clothing highlight the process of acculturation–adapting to and even adopting elements of the dominant, non-Jewish culture–in one Jewish family in the Lwów region. The older female relative wears a wig and a dress with long sleeves and a high collar. Orthodox Jewish women traditionally wore modest clothing and covered their hair with wigs or kerchiefs. By contrast, Szprinca (center) wears a dress with shorter sleeves and a lower, sheer neckline. Her head is uncovered. Szprinca’s husband Jakow, a kosher butcher, is more identifiably Jewish with his traditional beard and head covered by a cap or kippah. The couple’s sons show no obvious markers of Jewish identity. The older children are dressed in clothing typically worn by most schoolchildren in Poland at the time. Ephraim, the toddler sitting on Szprinca’s lap, has short hair. Hasidic boys under three years of age had long, uncut hair. The shaved heads of the other boys are also not reflective of Jewish tradition.
In September 1939, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east. The Menaker family lived under the Soviet occupation for almost two years. Ephraim was mobilized into the Soviet army in 1941, presumably around the time Germany attacked the Soviet Union. He served in the Soviet army until the end of the war. The rest of the Menaker family remained in the Lwów region, now occupied by the Germans. The Menakers and other Jews there were subjected to humiliation, theft, forced labor violence, and murder. From the fall of 1941 to the fall of 1942, the German authorities forced Jews from Lwów and the surrounding area to move into the Lwów ghetto. Eventually, the Germans deported the Menakers and others from the ghetto to the Belzec killing center where they were murdered. Of the Menaker family, Ephraim was the only one to survive the Holocaust.
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This 1935 portrait shows Samuel and Adela Shiber with three of their children—Salomon (left), Matylda (center), and Emanuel (right). The Shibers were a Jewish family from Lwów. Samuel owned a textile workshop in the city. Samuel and Adela spoke Yiddish at home, while the children spoke Polish among themselves. In this photo, there are no obvious markers of Jewish identity. The family wears clothing typical for middle or upper class families at the time. The children are dressed like most schoolchildren in Poland. Other markers of acculturation include the family’s hairstyles. For example, Adela’s uncovered hair is a departure from the practice of more traditional, religious Jewish women who covered their heads as a sign of modesty. Unlike more traditional, religiously observant Jewish men, Samuel’s head is uncovered and he has no beard.
In September 1939, the Soviets occupied Lwów according to the terms of the German-Soviet Pact. Emanuel was sent to a Soviet military school in Kirovograd (now Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine). After graduation, Emanuel served as a gunner in a Soviet artillery unit. In 1943 he was transferred to the Polish 1st “Tadeusz Kościuszko” Infantry Division under Soviet command. He survived the war. Upon returning to Lwów with his unit in July 1944, he learned that Soviet authorities had arrested his brother Salomon in May 1941 on charges of belonging to an illegal Zionist organization. Salomon was later killed. Emanuel’s parents and sister Matylda were deported by the Germans to the Belzec killing center where they were murdered.
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This prewar photo shows newly married Daniel and Laura (née Litwak) Schwarzwald enjoying a day on the beach in Zaleszczyki, Poland (today Zalishchyky, Ukraine). The Schwarzwalds were Jews from Lwów. They married in 1935 and lived in a fashionable Lwów district where Jews were a minority. Both Laura and Daniel pursued university educations and spoke Polish, Russian, German, and Yiddish. Daniel also spoke English. At the time of their marriage, Daniel was a successful businessman. He owned a lumber exporting company. After the Soviet Union occupied Lwów in 1939, Soviet authorities seized Daniel's business.
The Germans occupied Lwów in 1941. The Schwarzwalds and their young daughter, Selma, were forced into a ghetto along with thousands of other Jewish people. Hoping to escape the ghetto, Daniel bought false identity papers for his family. Daniel, however, was killed before they could leave. Laura and Selma managed to escape in 1942. They fled to Busko-Zdrój, a Polish resort town. There, they lived under assumed Polish Christian identities. Laura’s language skills were key to their survival. Her fluency in German allowed her to work as an interpreter for the German authorities. Her fluency in Polish made their assumed identities seem plausible.
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Students sit at their desks in a classroom at a Polish-language public elementary school in Lwów around 1930. In interwar Poland, Jewish children could attend public or private schools. The curriculum in these schools was based on a secular education, in contrast to the traditional heder where boys were schooled in Jewish texts and traditions. This particular school was located in the city’s predominantly Jewish neighborhood and almost all of the students were Jewish. Before attending this school, Tamara Raizel Abramowicz (lower left) had been tutored in traditional Jewish texts at home.
Tamara and her family left Poland before the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. Her father immigrated to London in 1933. Her brother, Yankel, joined him there in 1938. Tamara and her mother followed them in June 1939. The entire family survived the period of the Holocaust in Great Britain. Tamara immigrated to the United States in 1951, where she was married.
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This group portrait shows instructors of the Hanoar Hatzioni Zionist youth movement at a summer camp in Lwów in 1936. The uniforms the young men wear, combined with the summer camp setting, bear similarities to the wider European scouting movement. Between World War I and World War II, scouting was very popular in Poland among young people. Scouting had a strongly national character. It inspired youth movements for Jews, who were excluded from scouting or who wanted to express their own national aspirations. Some of these groups promoted alternative ideologies or were affiliated with political parties. The ideological and political orientation of these movements reflected Jewish diversity in interwar Poland. Hanoar Hatzioni was one of several scouting movements that espoused Zionism. Zionism advocated for an independent Jewish state in the ancient Jewish homeland.
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This photograph shows a market scene at the main square in Lwów, Poland, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Sitting on the fountain is a man holding a chicken and a basket, likely filled with groceries. His long beard and style of dress, including the overcoat and fedora, identify him as a more traditional, religious Jew. Traditionally, observant Jewish men wore beards and kept their heads covered.
An elderly woman selling produce sits on the pavement near the man. In contrast to the man, the woman has no clear markers of ethnic, religious, or national identity. Older women of varied religions and ethnicities typically wore kerchiefs like this one. Religious Jewish women also sometimes covered their hair with wigs in place of kerchiefs primarily for special occasions.
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Lucie Lind shopping in an open-air market in Lwów, Poland, sometime in the 1930s. Lucie was born into an affluent Jewish family on January 23, 1909. At the time, Lwów (Lemberg) was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lucie was educated in Vienna. Before World War II, she was a housewife. Her first husband was a well-known artist throughout Europe. The couple’s daughter was born in 1936. Lucie’s fashionable clothes, hat, and gloves are typical for middle or upper class women living in Poland at the time, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
Lucie, along with her mother and daughter, survived the Holocaust by living under assumed Polish Christian identities. Lucie’s first and second husbands, as well as her brother and extended family, died during the Holocaust.
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