Bircza ( ua, Бірча, Bircha) is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

Przemyśl County __NOTOC__ Przemyśl County ( pl, powiat przemyski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, south-eastern Poland, on the border with Ukraine. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a re ...

Subcarpathian Voivodeship Subcarpathian Voivodeship or Subcarpathia Province (in pl, Województwo podkarpackie ) is a voivodeship, or province, in the southeastern corner of Poland. Its administrative capital and largest city is Rzeszów. Along with the Marshall, it is ...

, in south-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Bircza. It lies approximately south-west of

Przemyśl Przemyśl (; yi, פשעמישל, Pshemishl; uk, Перемишль, Peremyshl; german: Premissel) is a city in southeastern Poland with 58,721 inhabitants, as of December 2021. In 1999, it became part of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship; it was pr ...

and south-east of the regional capital

Rzeszów Rzeszów ( , ; la, Resovia; yi, ריישא ''Raisha'')) is the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. Rzeszów has been the capital of the Subcarpathian Vo ...

. The village has a population of 1,000.

Jewish community of Bircza

The earliest records of Jewish settlement in the area are from the Sixteenth Century. In the Nineteenth Century, the Jewish community grew to become about half the total size of area’s residents. Initially, the community was part of the Dobromyl community, but by the second half of the Nineteenth Century, it became independent. Most of the Jews in Bircza belonged to Dynów Hassidism, but a minority followed the Sadigura rabbis. During the conquest of the area by the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

, Cossacks carried out attacks on the Jewish residents, including acts of robbery, rape, and murder. Many local Jews fled to escape the violence and, in the years between the wars, large numbers of the community’s Jews emigrated, many to the United States. In the 1920s and 1930s,

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in J ...

activity in Bircza increased, particularly in the form of youth groups affiliated with Beitar and ha-Noʿar ha-Tsiyyoni, ha-Shomer ha-Tsaʿir, and Aḥvah. During these years, the Jewish community numbered around 1,040 residents out of a total population of 1,930. Following the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Bircza and its environs were part of Polish territory under

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

control, but in June 1941, the Nazi Germans invaded and placed local control in the hands of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (Ukrainische Hilfspolizei), which quickly killed sixteen Jewish community notables. Soon, various restrictions were placed upon the Jews of Bircza and its surrounding villages, including the requirement of wearing a yellow star of David and participating in forced labour, and much Jewish property was looted. Additionally, a

Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in ever ...

was established and commanded to transfer ransom payments, valuables, and furs to the Germans. In July 1942, the German and Ukrainian police carried out a violent operation in which the Jews of the surrounding villages were brought to the market square and forced to bend on their knees for hours. A ghetto was established in the town, as all of Bircza’s neighbouring villages were emptied of their Jewish population. Most of the Jews of Bircza were murdered in two operations, one on Kamienna Górka (‘Stony Hill’) and a further 800 Jews in 1942 on Górze Wierzysko (Wierzysko Hill). Afterwards, the remaining Jews were marched thirty kilometres on foot to the ghetto of

, from where they were transferred later to the

Belzec extermination camp Belzec (English: or , Polish: ) was a Nazi German extermination camp built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a major part of the "Final Solution" which in total ...

. One Polish family (Michał and Katarzyna Gierula) from the nearby village of Łodzinka Górna sheltered seven Jews in their barn, but after local residents discovered this, the German authorities killed the adults and their neighbour and the three remaining Jews on 01 January 1944. Their sacrifice was later recognised by

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

. A cross was set up on Kamienna Górka and, in 2018, following an effort by Bircza high school students, a sign was placed at the location of the second (and larger) killing site on Górze Wierzysko. Following the Second World War, a Union of Bircza Survivors was active for some decades in Israel. By 2021, only one

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivor from Bircza and the last remaining Jew born in Bircza (residing now in

Herzliyyah Herzliya ( ; he, הֶרְצְלִיָּה ; ar, هرتسليا, Hirtsiliyā) is an affluent city in the central coast of Israel, at the northern part of the Tel Aviv District, known for its robust start-up and entrepreneurial culture. In it ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

) remained alive in the world.

Notable residents of Bircza

Bircza was also the birthplace of

Yov Boretsky Job Boretsky ( uk, link=no, Йов, secular name Ivan Matfeyevich Boretsky, pl, link=no, Iwan Borecki, died 2 March 1631) was the Metropolitan of Kiev, Galicia and all Ruthenia in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Eastern Ortho ...

and Jan Komski.

References

External links

Gmina Bircza official websiteBircza Online! virtual ''shtetl'', genealogy, and research website
Villages in Przemyśl County Shtetls Holocaust locations in Poland {{Przemyśl-geo-stub