A kehilla had been founded in Grodzisko Dolne by the mid-18^th century. In 1754, there was a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery in the town. The same year, construction works commenced on a new synagogue which would replace the old wooden one.

At the time, Bishop of Przemyśl Wacław Sierakowski ordered to close the “Jewish school” (beth midrash), as it had been erected without his consent. Historical records mention that the Jewish cemetery was located outside the town’s boundaries and that the community had hired a Christian to keep guard on its premises. In 1785, Grodzisko Dolne and Grodzisko Górne were inhabited by a total of 275 Jews, while the total population amounted to ca. 2,800, making it one of the most populous towns of Przemyśl Land. Towards the end of the 18^th century, Grodzisko had 364 Jewish inhabitants, but this number soon decreased – in 1835, only 168 Jews lived in the area of the local Roman Catholic parish. In 1870, the Jewish community had 444 members.

The Jewish minority of Grodzisko Dolne greatly contributed to the town’s economic development. In the 19^th century, it had ca. 1,200 Jewish residents. The local kehilla owned a prayer house and a cemetery and employed a rabbi. In 1891, the community lost its autonomy and was subordinated to the Leżajsk kehilla, but it still maintained a synagogue, a cheder, and a cemetery.[1.1]

In 1909, local tzaddik Eliezer Horowitz (1881–1943) assumed the post of the rabbi. He later moved to Tarnów, where he was killed by the Germans. After World War I, the size of the Jewish population of Grodzisko decreased.[1.2] This was mainly due to their migration to bigger towns (Lviv, Kraków, Rzeszów, Przemyśl) and abroad in search of better employment opportunities and improvement of living conditions.

According to census data from 1921, the Jewish population of Grodzisko Miasteczko amounted to 367 people (62.3% of the total number of residents), whereas the number of Jews in the villages later incorporated into the Grodzisko Dolne Municipality was much smaller. Those villages were: Chodaczów – 12 people (2.6%), Dębno – 73 (3.7%), Grodzisko Dolne – 101 (3.3%), Grodzisko Górne – 12 (0.5%), Opaleniska – 4 (0.8%), Wólka Grodziska – 5 (0.5%), Zmysłówka – 39 (5.4%).[1.3] In 1930, Grodzisko Miasteczko was incorporated into Grodzisko Dolne.

According to data from the Municipality Office, 422 Jews inhabited Grodzisko Dolne in 1935. They lived mostly in the area of the former Grodzisko Miasteczko. Józef Burszta wrote a detailed description of that area:

“In 1939, we had 70 Jewish houses around the ‘market square’ and the adjacent streets. At the end of 1931, they were inhabited by 82 Jewish families dealing with all kinds of trade and different crafts. Those houses were surrounded by 43 houses of the poor. While the former, Jewish-owned houses were in a relatively good condition, the latter dwellings, inhabited by poor Jews or peasants, were primitive shacks, and hardly any was in an acceptable state.”

The remaining localities forming part of the Grodzisko Dolne Municipality were inhabited by very few Jewish families, no more than a dozen. Two Jewish families lived in Opaleniska – a relatively poor village – before World War II: the family of Szmul, who ran a greengrocer’s with his wife (widow of Majer), and the Bunaś family, who kept a small farm and owned a plot in the forest. In 1870, the Jewish population of the Grodzisko Dolne Municipality still formed a separate kehilla with its seat in Grodzisko. However, the independent community was later dissolved and its former members were included in the Leżajsk kehilla.

Similarly to the Jews residing in Leżajsk, the Jewish population of Grodzisko Dolne (former Grodzisko Miasteczko) had a synagogue, a Jewish cemetery, a ritual bath (mikveh), and a ritual slaughterhouse of cattle and poultry (chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks). There were also several chadarim providing religious education for boys from the age of three, thanks to which it was not necessary to commute to remote Leżajsk.

The community’s life centred around the synagogue and religious services held at the temple. In Grodzisko Miasteczko, all streets and alleys ran towards a hill with the synagogue at the very top. The centuries-old building was made of beautiful carved wood and had a high artistic value. The synagogue and the services held inside were thus described by Ilex Beller, who was born in Grodzisko in 1914 and migrated in 1928:

“On the hill there is a beautiful one-storey wooden building with two rows of windows with small square panes. Time has slightly changed the colour of the wood from ashen to brown. The square roof covered with zinc was sparkling in the sun. On the first storey there was a long balcony running along the entire wall of the synagogue – it was the women’s gallery. To enter the building, you pass through arched oak doors. The large hall is beautifully decorated, colourful, lit by copper chandeliers. The vault, supported by wooden arches, is decorated with delicate carvings and gilding. The velvet curtains have been embroidered by young girls from Miasteczko. In the centre there is an entrance to the women’s gallery with a small staircase and a small door. We can hear the women wail during mourning prayers. I often hear my mother’s voice, she cries the loudest. The ceiling paintings – plants and animals – symbolise the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The lion representing the Tribe of Judah is looking at me with its human eyes. I have never forgotten that look. […] The synagogue is closed during most of the week, it is opened on Friday night for the Shabbat and during religious holidays. Those attending the synagogue are simple people – craftsmen, traders, coachmen, and Jews from other villages arriving on foot to hear ‘the scripture in Yiddish.’ Some of the poorest are the beggars sitting by the entrance, in ragged clothes, holding prayer books and listening carefully to the prayers despite not understanding a word, saying “amen” with the greatest conviction. A prayer house was located not far from the synagogue, wooden like other houses, open day and night. The Hasidim go to pray there in the morning, in the evening, and on their way to work. Each brings a bag with a tallit and tefillin and joins the ‘Minyan’ prayer group. At times, they stay at the house of prayer all day to study texts. Young Talmudists, 15 or 16 years old, studied without rest, being too intelligent to go to the cheder but too poor to enrol in a rabbinical school in a big city. They danced together, leaned forward, wrapped their payot around their fingers and recited texts together, which was a deeply moving spectacle. Some of them married daughters of rich merchants and were supported by their fathers-in-law for many years. Others married in town and became petty traders. Their wives had to be the breadwinners so that they would be able to continue their study of the Torah.”[1.4]

In the 1880s, there were two chadarim in Grodzisko with a total of 22 students. In the same period, there were six chadarim in Leżajsk, attended by 85 boys.[1.5] In the mid-1920s, a third cheder was opened in Grodzisko Miasteczko, and there were three melamedim in the town. Mordechaj der Szames taught the youngest boys, focusing primarily on the Hebrew alphabet. Boys aged 8–9 were taught the Bible and commentary by Nute-der-Melamed. The oldest boys (chadarim were attended until the age of 13, which marked the Bar Mitzvah) were taught the Gemara by an old Jew called Dawid.

The ritual slaughterhouse was located near the synagogue. It was run by an old Jew by the name of Haskale. Not far away there was a brick mikveh offering steam baths and access to bathtubs; inside the building there was a running water outlet. Behind the synagogue, at the far end of Grodzisko Miasteczko, there was the Jewish cemetery, surrounded with a tall brick wall with a locked gate.

The religious devotion of the Jews from Grodzisko was clearly visible in its everyday life. Prayers were said three times a day: at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset. Appropriate prayers and blessings were also said before meals. Local Jews would pray in Hebrew and otherwise communicate in Yiddish, called mame loshn – the “mother tongue.” All Jews could read and write in Yiddish. Religious holidays were duly celebrated, both when it came to the weekly Shabbat and to other festivals.

Jewish weddings were spectacular and solemn events, as were funerals. Due to the small size and close-knitted nature of the Grodzisko community, wedding and funeral ceremonies were attended by almost all local Jews. One of the weddings held in Grodzisko was thus described by Ilex Beller:

“I remember the wedding of Gołda, the beautiful fiancée of Meilech (a merchant). When the long expected day came, the groom rented four coaches drawn by beautiful horses, trimmed with white ribbons and feathers. Ten men dressed as ‘Cossacks’ escorted them to the train station to welcome the bride and her family, while half of the village was awaiting the procession.

The coaches galloped through the village without stopping. Then two ‘Cossacks’ went to negotiate with the bride’s father, as she had been kidnapped for ransom. Her release was sealed with four bottles of vodka, then she was set free. Afterwards she was led through the wonderfully lit synagogue filled to the brim with guests. Putting the ring on his future wife’s finger, the groom recited: ‘Behold, you are consecrated to me with this ring according to the laws of Moses and Israel.’ The rabbi says a prayer which the people repeat in silence. He then reads the Ketubah in Aramaic, which is the language rabbis use for all sorts of deeds. The wedding contract says that the husband needs to respect the physical, moral, and social life of his wife. The groom breaks a glass with his foot for good luck. Everybody congratulates the newlyweds and shouts: Mazel tov! Then all the guests go to the wedding reception, boys light up torches. Windows and doors of all houses in the village are open, the people shout at the procession as it passes their dwelling: ‘Let it bring us good luck. Mazel tov. Soon it’s going to be your children’s turn.’ […]

The family and guests take their seats around the bride and groom, the band is playing, the Marschalik [wedding dance leader] improvises songs. Golden chicken broth and wonderful meats are served, vodka is poured generously. Tongues loosen up, the Hasidim start dancing. The father-in-law is dancing the mitzvah tenzl with the daughter-in-law. […]

The band with its leader – Chaim the barber, who plays the violin – play waltzes, polkas, the Krakowiak. Mordechale-Psachie-dem-Glers announces the main event: the colondance, a traditional dance passed from mothers to daughters for generations. Nobody actually knew where it had come from and what the lyrics meant. The boys stand in a row on the one side, the girls on the other, Mordechale is in the centre giving the rhythm: ‘forward colondance, pa, pa, pa.’ The dancers, holding hands, are moving forward to the beat of the music, then the boys change their partners; the girls are elated.

Much time had passed and I had spent many years in France before I understood what the colondance was. It was a minuet, an old French dance. But how this dance of the French aristocracy managed to reach our village remains a mystery which I have never been able to solve.”[1.6]

The annihilation of Jewish people during World War II brought a definite end to the community of Grodzisko and ended the town’s centuries-long mutual Polish-Jewish history. None of the few Jews who had survived the Holocaust decided to return to their home town. The synagogue was pulled down during the German occupation. The Jewish cemetery was devastated around the same time. Several years ago, Rywka Becher from Israel founded a monument in the shape of a gravestone at the site to commemorate her family and all the Jews from Grodzisko who had been murdered during World War II only because they were Jews.

After the outbreak of World War II, Grodzisko was captured by German forces. On 27 September 1939, a part of local Jews was displaced to the other side of the San River, to the Soviet occupation zone. Some of them illegally migrated to Russia, others went into hiding. In 1941, there were ca. 750 Jews residing in Grodzisko, most of them resettled from outside the town. During the liquidation of the local ghetto, the Nazis executed 241 Jews in the Jewish cemetery. They were buried in a mass grave which is yet to be marked or commemorated in any way.

Jews suffered numerous repressions, including the seizure of Jewish-owned buildings and land carried out on 12 September 1941.[1.7] A group of 25 hiding Jews was captured and murdered in the nearby locality of Budy Łańcuckie. After World War II, the Jewish population disappeared from the demographic map of Grodzisko. Most Jewish houses were pulled down and replaced with new buildings, also in the area of the market square. The only preserved traces of the Jewish community are the cemetery and the memory of the tragedy it witnessed. The cemetery was almost completely destroyed during the war, only around a dozen broken matzevot have survived.

The Jewish cemetery in Grodzisko Dolne was established in the 18^th century. It is located on a hill ca. 500 m north-west of the centre of the town. Its premises are devastated and overgrown. There are only around a dozen matzevot at the site, the rest were used as building material by the local population. The total area of the cemetery is 0.5 ha.

Bibliography

• Burszta J., Wieś małopolska. Studium struktury i organizacji społeczno-przestrzennej wsi Grodzisko w powiecie łańcuckim, Poznań 1997.
• Beller I., Ils ont tué mon village (main schtetl), Paris 1981.
• Krochmal J., Bożnice i cmentarze żydowskie na terenie rzymskokatolickiej diecezji przemyskiej w połowie XVIII wieku, Przemyśl 2004.
• Michalewicz J., Żydowskie okręgi metrykalne i żydowskie gminy wyznaniowe w Galicji doby autonomicznej, Kraków 1995.
• Sigda J., Chłopak z Opalenisk (wspomnienia), Borek Stary 2006.
• Wierzbieniec W., Żydzi w województwie lwowskim w okresie międzywojennym. Zagadnienia demograficzne i społeczne, Rzeszów 2003.