Les Juifs de Tarnów

Tarnów, in Galicia, was the seat of a large Jewish community in which Jews constituted a significant share of the population and were active in commerce, crafts, and industry. A crossroads of Ashkenazi Jewish currents, the city brought together both Hasidic circles and Mitnagdim, as well as, in the modern era, supporters of the Jewish Enlightenment, Zionism, and the labor movement. Synagogues, schools, and communal institutions testified to an intense Jewish life. Under German occupation, the community was confined to a ghetto and then almost entirely exterminated between 1942 and 1944, at Bełżec, Auschwitz, and through on-site executions.

Sources & resources

• The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe ↗
• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan