"Everything is Illuminated"

[Hannia]

Everything is Illuminated, Not.

Everything Is Illuminated

[Zbyszek]

Hi Hannia, I found the article you referenced really interesting. Yes, those brave acts of noble souls, even if isolated, have to be even more appreciated and made well known.
What I also found interesting is the very term “Jewish village”. In fact I have not heard about whole villages as being all Jewish, particularly in the Russian Empire. I know there was one Tzarist decree which stated that Jews were not legally allowed to till land for the matter. Jewish communities, both in Poland and Ukraine most typically inhabited little towns. They often lived in villages but usually just as small groups of families.

[Hannia]

Hello Z. Glad to see you here.
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The Jewish communities were organized into filial Kahals, so that even if there was one or two families in a village, they had a definite filial community to which they belonged. The Kahal took care of their own spriritually, kept all the metrikal data, and also acted as a charity for the very poor among them.

Most District Center Towns were referred to as shtetls and this was where the Kahals were located, because that is where there were large groupings of Jews. Of course, there were others also living in these towns, but not in the same numbers. There were restrictions on land ownership, especially in the Pale of Russia, so without these options Jews were in businesses of all kinds. In the villages they were frequently the inn keepers, store keepers and commodity middlemen.

During WW2 when the Nazis started to herd and massacre them en masse, the district towns became ghostly versions of what they had been. Some district center towns became district center villages, and many still are 60 yrs later.

However if you talk to the locals about towns actually disappearing, Stalin's Scorched Earth Policy still holds all the records.

[Serhii]

Excellent example of how those illuminators work The author of the article did just perfect work and very calmly showed to softly say ‘unfair methods’ of theirs. The real truth is still closed and they know where. Perhaps they are afraid even to mention or just co work with those ‘keepers’. They have done it many times before.

I have just come from 2 days (!) seminar on the same issue. The facts and methods were very much alike. It seems the illuminators are the same or they simply earn money.

I copied the article, it will be useful one day. Thanks Hannia.