Cemeteries Not Only Jewish Destroyed Zalewski

Galician Trails: The Forgotten Story of One Family, by Andrew Zalewski. 2012

Not Only Jewish Cemeteries Were Desecrated, Repurposed, or Destroyed. Poles’ Were Too (But Nobody Talks About That)

GALICIAN TRAILS includes interesting information. For instance, one learns that the Soviets used bulldozers to destroy the Polish cemetery, in 1980, in Stanislawow (Ivano-Frankivsk). (p. 329). [And yet various exhibits of MATZEVOT (Jewish tombstones) in the West, by their Jewish-exclusive nature, create the impression that only Jewish cemeteries met this fate.]

This work is partly biographical in nature, and emphasizes the Polish, Jewish, and German roots of the author. It tells the reader about the everyday relations between Poles, Jews, and Ruthenians (Ukrainians). It focuses on the Jacquerie of 1846, the reign of the Austrian Emperior Franz Jozef, and the 1918 Polish-Ukrainian War.

Unfortunately, the author is sometimes rather superficial in his descriptions of events. For instance, his analysis of the pogroms of 1918 can stand significant improvement. For corrective, please click on, and read my review of Morgenthau’s All in a life-time.