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Until the beginning of World War I in 1914, quite a large percentage of Sokal Jews were engaged in agricultural work. Mostly, they were leaseholders of property owned by a small number of landowners, or were involved in whiskey distilleries, [or were] economists, millers, dairymen, orchard tenders, etc. The economic condition of the lessors and landowners was a very good one, because under the large Austrian monarchy there was a good demand for the various agricultural products. These Jewish lessors and landowners, with few exceptions, were orthodox Jews, mostly wearing a beard and sidelocks. In every courtyard of this kind, a melamed also worked, whose goal was to educate the younger generation in Jewish custom.

World War I and the political changes that it brought about, produced a complete ruin of Jewish agricultural work in the villages. From the very beginning of the War, bloody battles were fought in the fields around Sokal. The fields went up in fire and smoke. The lessors lost almost their entire net worth. The owners were left only with the land itself.

After the collapse of Austria, when the new Polish Republic came into being, the circumstances of the Jewish landowners were very difficult. What remained of the markets vanished and in addition, the Polish authorities had plans to parcel out the land among Polish peasants that were brought in from the western areas of Poland. The one way out for the Jewish landowners to rescue small parts of their property from being parceled out, was to divide the land among their children.

In the Sokal vicinity, the following Jewish landowners were active:

Bezalel Szmutzer, Head of the Sokal community
Dogilevsky in Steniatyn
Hertz Ekker in Uhnov
Yitzhak Krom in Horodlo
Reiss in the Belz vicinity
Alter Szprung in Varenzh
Pesha Tauba in Liwcze Wachs and Engel in Laszczów
Kaliszer in Bobyatin

Apart from the Kaliszer family, owners of large parcels in various parts of Poland, who had permanent residences in Lemberg (Lviv), all of these previously mentioned lessors lived on their property.

The following were Jewish lessors of property in the Sokal area:

Joseph Fish in Wojslawice
Mottl Hinter in Krystynopol
Fyvel Lawrence in Konotop
Yitzhak Lawrence in Wolica Komarova
Hersh Fass in Starogard
Moshe Fass in Dlużhnikòw

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Netaniel Fass in Tartarowica
Shimon Fass in Cielondzhi
Aharon Fass in Pietczigury
Yitzhak Falvel in Zhabuza
Moshe Ekker in Rulikóvka
Abraham Schiffenbauer in Switazhov
Leon Schiffenbaur in Switazhov
Moshe Kurtz in Cielondzhi
Izaak Gleicher in Witków Novy
Aharon Schiffenbauer in Konyuchy (Khodorov Precinct).

The founder of a respected leasing family was R' Yaakov Fass, a patriarchal Jew with a long beard, wearing a silken hat and a long kapote^[1].

His five sons oversaw the land property, that was spread over the entire territory of the Sokal precinct. They did good business and every one of them built or bought a house in the center of Sokal which they held in reserve as a residence for themselves, where, they would come during Festivals along with their families, to be able to pray in a quorum. Only R' Yaakov Fass and his wife lived in Sokal (at Mickiewicz Gasse 4), and every Sunday, they held financial consultations under the oversight of the head of the family. A daughter-in-law would wait by the house in the city in a fine carriage to which good horses were hitched.

The outbreak of World War I brought an end to this successful [venture]. The entire assets of this family were sunken in the grain business, in the efforts in the fields and in ripe inventory. During the incidents if the War all of this was burned and plundered… their entire worth was ruined.

Every member of this family was left only with their house in Sokal, along with a pack of promissory notes due at the end of the war, which had no value. Because of the complete ruin of Jewish enterprises, hundreds of Jewish workers lost their ability to make a living. Without bread-related work, only distilleries and the like were left in Jewish hands, which the Jewish lessors ran in their properly equipped facilities. Part of these unemployed Jews emigrated westward, over the ocean, others sought work and took up residence in the city.

After the creation of the independent Polish Republic in 1918, barely a few Jewish lessors remained there. The Jewish land occupiers were systematically driven out from the Sokal province, either by forced dividing up of the land, or by anti-Jewish boycotting. In reality, the only recourse to the Jews was to sell their land – and the reverse, buying land was not permitted to them, because the ‘Uzhond Ziemski’ (land ownership) was not specified in their purchase contracts.

A Jewish lessor, in fact, could no longer acquire land parcels, because the boycott included the source of Jewish income. Leasing land to a Jew – was seen as something opposed to the Polish national interests.

Up until World War II, only a few Jewish lessors survived, among them Moshe Kurtz in

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Cielondzhi, and the Schiffenbauers, who ran model businesses in Szwietoszow, and the landowners Bezalel Szmutzer, Engel, Wax and Reiss.

The Red Army evacuated everyone in 1939… both lessors and landowners, in a similar manner. Their entire net worth was ‘nationalized’ and they, as a suspect element along the entire border area could not obtain any Soviet parcels and were forced to leave Sokal with their families; in the years 1941-1942 they were murdered by the Hitler beasts.

Of the tens of families (several hundred lives) who lived off the land, [a few who] saved themselves, first singly, today live in Israel: Leon Schiffenbauer and his wife are engaged in the teaching of agriculture in Kfar-Saba, Aharon Schiffenbauer, is a landowner in Herzliya, and Aryeh Fass, is a teacher in the Mikve-Israel School of Agriculture.

The Mickiewicz Street

1. A long overcoat usually reaching to below the knees. Return

Up until the World War II outbreak, the Sokal province was made up of five city-like and 95 village-like settlements. Apart from Sokal, the cities consisted of: Belz, Kristianopol, Tartakov and Varenzh. The population in the entire province in the year 1900 was comprised of 211,000 souls, of which 112,000 (53.1%) were Jews.

In the city of Sokal itself the Jewish population in the year 1900 was 3,778, i.e., 39.3% of the general resident population, which at that time consisted of 9,609 souls; in the other four cities, the number of Jews exceeded the number of Christian residents.

There were 20,000 Jews living in the entire Sokal province in the year 1900, that is 13.7% of the general population.^[1]

For many years, the city of Sokal had the appearance of a large village, which covered an area of 4,926 marg, arable soil, and its Christian residents until the end of the 19^th century, were almost exclusively engaged in agriculture, with the herding of cattle, horses and sheep.

The entire factory business, with few exceptions, the entire industrial commerce was in Jewish hands. The speed of industrial development first began to quicken to a

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greater extent with the construction of good roads, and after completion of the railroad station, which enabled communication through Rawa-Ruska and Żółkiew with Lemberg.

The Christian residents in Sokal were unhappy with the rapid growth in Jewish numbers in the city, despite the fact that they saw, that thanks to the energy and diligence of the Jewish residents, the city was developing in the industry area.

The Polish historians that studied the Polish industrial history, stated clearly in their writings, that after the second half of the 19th century, Sokal still looked like a poor little village and it was first when the Jews began to take up residence in larger numbers, that the appearance of the city changed, because all of the empty parcels of land vanished and small wooden houses were built on them, made from concrete, and were mostly one-family houses.

Thanks to the Jewish underwriting of this home construction and to the energy and spirit of commitment of the Jewish residents, Sokal became an important commercial and industrial hub, with three new ventures with high amounts of revenue and other fees, providing employment to a significant number of unemployed Jews and non-Jews alike.

I would like to recollect only a few names of Jews from Sokal who – at various times – mostly before World War I, founded and managed large commercial and industrial enterprises.

The first place goes to the large steam-[operated] mill, the only one in the entire Sokal province. It was erected by a Jew from Stanislaw, Rauch, a talented and cultured man. After some time, he sold the mill to Baron Hugo Watman, who had to take on the obligation, because in this time Rauch's son spent his entire life as the director of the mill. He actually did carry out his duties masterfully and in good order, until the outbreak of the World War II, when the Soviets took control of the city of Sokal. All the employees in the mill were Jews and almost the entire grain for the mill was exported by Jewish agricultural workers. Young Rauch, even though he ran an assimilated household, was generously philanthropic to all Jewish causes. After the Holocaust, his daughter, who survived in Lemberg (Lviv), today lives in England with her husband, the physician Dr. Domansky.

Greener's bench factory belonged to the second largest factory, which exported benches to all the surrounding agricultural estates, and were active gorzelnias^[2]. Greener, the owner of this factory, was of the balebatim and a religious Jew. Several years before the outbreak of World War I, he sold the factory to a Pole, and moved to Lemberg alone. Of his entire family – three sons and two daughters – only one daughter saved herself, who today lives in Tel-Aviv.

Szargel's candle and soap factory was among the larger industrial enterprises in Sokal.

There were six brick factories in Sokal, only one of which belonged to a Christian. The owners

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of all the other factories were Jews, such as Honig, and Szmutzer, who also ran a factory near the train station. The two printing businesses also belonged to Jews. One belonged to Glazer and the other to Kiehl, whose sons founded a plumbing factory in town, this being the only one for the entire expanse of Galicia. In the year 1922, the factory exported its products to Haifa for Rothschild's mill.

Both of Kiehl's sons, David and Yitzhak, already belonged to the active Zionist [chapter] in Sokal after World War I. Yitzhak was a member of the Zionist chapter committee and belonged to the management of the Merchant's bank. He was killed by the Nazi murderers in August 1942. David Kiehl was killed along with his wife during the third aktion in the Sokal ghetto in 1943.

There was also a barley factory in Sokal, which belonged to Mrs. Feiga Bennie.

Sokal also had a respectable place in the area of merchandising. This is thanks to the significant number of Jewish wholesale merchants, who developed a strong export business for cattle and agricultural products. The entire import of necessities was also in Jewish hands.

Among the more prominent families in this category were Rappaport, Babad and Burstein, who was the principal grain exporter. Burstein was an observant Jew and had a significant library of collected Yiddish books in his home. His children studied at universities and were already assimilated. All of them were exterminated during the Nazi uprooting and killing of Jews in Sokal.

Opgott was a prosperous textile merchant, who worked his way to have a considerable influence on the Jewish street in Sokal and represented the Jews in the Sokal Town Council.

The usual buying and selling in the city were naturally all in Jewish hands.

The large number of small-time merchants and storekeepers worked and lived under difficult financial conditions. In a large measure, they did business by buying up agricultural products from the peasantry in the surrounding villages, and as a result they participated intensively in the weekly market fair days that were held in the city.

In the area around Sokal there were lessor Jews for the larger estates, as among other families there were: Fass, Krom and Gantz. Accordingly, there were not a small number of Jews running these large estates, such as Fish, who was a skilled agricultural worker.

In general, a masterful order reigned in all the agricultural properties in which Sokal Jews participated, as lessors, or directors, and the masterful and orderly income from these ventures was not small. Also, Sokal Jews were not missing in owning agricultural parcels, such as the Head of the Sokal Jewish Community, Szmutzer.

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Those Jews in Sokal, who were not active in these previously mentioned businesses, did hard work in very difficult circumstances, and not one trade was practiced in the city in which Jews were not active.

The master clock makers Baszwitz, Ring and Windler were known throughout the entire Sokal district and were famed as good, decent working people. Meller belonged to the good mozheniszkehs.^[3] The Christian residents took over the posts from employees in the municipal and governmental administration and participated in a limited fashion in production, and therefore the Jews engaged in selling their handiwork.

The Jews of Sokal established an array of beneficial acting institutions, and also founded humanitarian societies to help the poorer populace. This is detailed in another part of this Yizkor Book.

If we are dealing with the businesses of Sokal Jews before World War I– it is worth emphasizing that in the free professions such as law or medicine, the Jews of Sokal were well represented. Among the most prominent of the citizenry were: the first and oldest lawyer, Dr. Frenkel, a nationalist Jew, in whose chancellery a whole group of rights practitioners worked, mostly young Zionist leaders such as, for example, Dr. Zvi Bikels, Dr. Schneider, Dr. Gottesman, and Dr. Inslicht.

Dr. Auerbach also ran a legal chancellery at the same time. Dr. Wolfram was a committed Zionist and the founder of the ‘Honig' school.

A Jewish Carpentry in Sokal, 1939

This small fact collection most prominently shows what Sokal Jews, bestially murdered by Hitler's executioners, contributed to the development and growth of the city.

1. These figures are taken from Sokolski's book ‘Powiat Sokal.’ Return
2. Polish for distilleries Return
3. One of the local townspeople Return

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