Staryy Sambir Jewish Cemetery
Cemetery Information
Historical overview
Presumably, the cemetery was established at the beginning of the 19th century. It occupied a big piece of land on a map of 1853. It can be supposed that the cemetery was operating until WWII. In the Soviet period, it was vandalized and partly demolished. In the 2000s, the cemetery was restored and renovated by the J.Gardner initiative.
The first records about the Jews relate to 1544. In in the early 18th century, the main part of the local Jewry was engaged in the trading of seeds and agricultural products. The Jewish population stood at 1,377 (39,5% of the total population) in 1880 and reached its peak of 1,827 in 1910. In the early 20th century, the branches of the Zionist organisations began to function. In 1910, Hebrew courses from “Safa brura” were carried out. There were pogroms on the Jews of Stary Sambor during the period of the Western Ukrainian Republic (1918–1919). In 1921, the Jewish population diminished to 1,534 (35,5% of the total population) because of the economic declination. The households of 384 Jewish families were devastated by the fire of 1923. In the interwar period, the departments of “Beitar” as well as the branches of “Ha-Shomer ha-Tzair” and “Akiva” operated in the city. In 1931, the Jewish population was 1,562 and grew through the flown of the refugees from Poland by 1941. On 30 June 1941, the Wehrmacht units occupied Staryy Sambir. In August 1942, the major part of the Jewish community was sent to the Belzec death camp. The remnants of the local Jewry were gathered in Sambir ghetto.