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Year	General Population	Jews
1880	2,047	1,333
1890	2,619	1,669
1900	3,445	2,095
1910	6,425	3,099
1921	5,989	2,410
1930	Approx. 8,000	2,670

Skole was founded in the 11^th century during the era of the Ruthenian Prince Sviatoslav. During the 12^th century, it was an important transit port from the capital of the Principality, Halicz, to Hungary. The city was almost completely destroyed during the time of the Chmielnicki uprising, and was rebuilt during the reign of King Jan Sobieski. In 1888, there was a fire in Skole that destroyed approximately one hundred houses, including many communal buildings. Skole served as a district capital from 1908-1932.

The first information of the Jews of Skole come from the beginning of the 18^th century. In 1702, we have information of Jews who worked in the cattle industry. In 1717, the Jews of Skole paid 1,075 zloty of head tax; apparently this also included the Jews of the area.

A large sawmill was established there already during the 1840s. Its area of expertise was the manufacturing of wooden boards for violins and other musical instruments. There was also a factory for spades. During that time, a match factory was founded, which was the largest of its type in all of Galicia. It employed more than one hundred Jewish workers. At the end of the century, the city turned into a venue for summer vacations. Jews moved over to businesses in the tourism industry, and the number of workers in the sawmill and other factories decreased.

An independent community was organized in Skole during the second half of the 18^th century. At that time, one of the first Hassidim of Skole, Reb Yehuda Skoler, made aliya to the Land and settled in Safed.

The rabbis of Skole included Rabbi Yehuda-Leib the son of Reb Moshe, the author of Shevet

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MiYehuda. Previously, he was the rabbi in Żurawno. His tenure in Skole began in 1780. He was followed in 1800 by his son Rabbi Moshe, the author of Pnei Moshe.

In the first elections to the city council in 1879, in which Jews participated, the Jews won most of the seats. At that time, circles that favored collaboration with the Poles were dominant in the Jewish communal leadership. They also dominated the communal council in collaboration with the traditional Orthodox circles. Dr. Ehrenpreis visited Skole in August 1894. He attempted to found a Zionist organization, but he did not succeed. In 1897, a Zionist initiating committee was organized. It set up the Ahavat Zion organization. That year, Binyamin Kluger of Skole participated in the First Zionist Congress.

At that time, an organization of Zionist academics named Dorshei Zion was founded in Skole. That organization had its own hall , in which an additional Zionist organization, Yudah, also operated. Apparently, the leadership of the community transferred to the Zionists at the beginning of the 20^th century. The head of the community of Skole, B. Kluger, who also represented the Zionists of Skole, participated in the funeral of the Zionist leader Dr. Henryk Gabel in Lwów (August 1910).

In 1911, a chapter of Mizrachi was set up in Skole, as was a chapter of Poalei Zion in 1914, which numbered forty-five men and twenty-five women at that time.

A Jewish public school of two grades, founded by Baron Hirsch, opened there at the beginning of the 20^th century. A complementary Hebrew school of the Safah Berura style was established in 1904. It had fifty-four students at the outset, and the number grew from year to year. That school was closed in 1911 due to financial difficulties.

Cultural activities in Skole were based primarily on the many vacationers who came to the place. Performances and parties took place through their initiative.

During that period, the main source of livelihood of the Jews was summer vacation support (renting dwellings and other services), as well as wagon driving. The tailoring field provided livelihood for 132 people, half independent and half hired workers. Other branches in which Jews of Skole earned their livelihood included: food – thirty people, building – nine people, printing – four people, laundry workers – five people. Only a few Jews worked in the lumber industry, thirteen individuals out of approximately one thousand in that field. There were seventy-seven Jewish hired workers in Skole, including sixteen women.

The Jewish small-scale merchants and tradespeople set up two financial institutions for mutual aid: the Gemach [charitable loan fund] was established in 1928, and gave out 189 loans totally 15,605 zloty in the 1936-1937 fiscal year. The borrowers included seventy-three tradespeople, eighty-four small-scale merchants, twenty-six employees, and six others. In 1935, a cooperative credit bank was set up with the support of the JOINT. Jewish tradespeople organized themselves into Yad Charutzim.

The Jews submitted a single list for the elections to the city council. No elections took place at all in 1927. A single list was submitted, which included representatives of the three nationalities who lived in Skole. Four Jews, including three Zionists and one representative of the merchants were chosen for the city leadership. In the elections of 1937, seven Jews were elected from the single Jewish list, including five Zionists and two non-partisans. In the final elections for the city council in 1939, twelve Poles and four Jews were elected. Dr. Bernard Bers (a non-Zionist who collaborated with the Zionists) served as the vice mayor until those elections. In 1939, he was only elected as a member of the city leadership.

In the elections for the communal council in 1924, sixteen Zionists were elected out of eighteen spots. In 1929, the number of spots decreased to eight, including five Zionist and three from the block that included Agudas Yisroel and the assimilationists. Dr. Bernard Bers served as the head of the community during that period.

In 1939, the communal budget was 25,000 zloty. From that budget, 4,500 zloty was allotted to social aid, and 1,400 to educational needs. The community ran a bathhouse. It was the only one in the city and was used by gentiles as well. The communal building, apparently built at the beginning of the 1920s, served as a Jewish public hall.

Among the influential people in the city, we should note two Jewish assimilationists who served in senior positions in Skole: Grosman, who served at the city secretary all that time, and Kahana, who was the head of the income tax division. The latter had begun his tenure already during the time of Austrian rule, and continued in his role even after the renewal of Polish rule.

The community did not have a rabbi at that time. Two rabbinical judges, both named Rotenberg, served in the community. There were disputes between them, and what one permitted the other forbade.

From among the charitable organizations, it is fitting to note the Chesed women's union, which was occupied with giving aid to the poor, especially to the ill ones. A public kitchen was set up during the mid 1930s, from which approximately two hundred needy elderly people and children received lunch for free every day. A branch of the TAZ hygiene organization also functioned in Skole. Its main concern was the health of children and public health.

A private gymnasja [high school] without government authorization existed in Skole for a brief period. Many Jewish students studied there. A Tarbut Hebrew complementary school existed throughout the entire period.

From among the Jewish factions, there were Zionists of all the various streams. The most influential were the General Zionists, the Radical Zionists, Mizrachi, Poalei Zion, and the Revisionist union. The General Zionists, the Mizrachi, and Poalei Zion already existed in Skole prior to the First World War. Hitachdut was established in 1923, and the Revisionists apparently at the end of the 1920s. The Radical Zionists split off from the General Zionists in the middle of the 20^th century.

Hashomer Hatzair was the first of the youth movements to be established in Skole. The chapter was closed by the government at the time of the renewal of Polish independence in 1920, with the pretext that it was damaging the “good relations” between the nations in the city. However, it reopened in 1928. At the beginning of the 1930s, an Achva chapter was opened, which later turned into Hanoar Hatzioni. In 1930, the Beita'r movement organized, and in time became the largest in the city. In 1939, the radical Zionists established a chapter of the Hashachar youth movement.

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Year	General Zionists	Mizrachi	Hitachdut	Poalei Zion	Revisionists Party of the State	Radical Zionists
1927	40	1	8	2	--	10
1931	161	5	61		83	1
1933	258	1	171		97	6
1935	262	11	294		50	3
1939	84	2	81		2	--

The local Agudas Yisroel chapter had a considerable influence in the Orthodox circles. The illegal Communist party also had members from among the Jewish youth in the city. During that period, the remnants of the assimilationists engaged in charitable and aid activities for students at that time. The summer camps and vacationers were also involved in local cultural life. Through their help, performances and artistic events were presented.

The parties had libraries affiliated with them. The oldest of them was affiliated with the Dorshei Zion organization. At the end of the 1920s, a library with more than 1,000 volumes was established under the auspices of the Bar Kochba sports organization. The Achva organization had a drama club.

Expressions of anti-Semitism increased in Skole during the 1930s. Organized harassment of Jews began already in 1932. Jewish merchants were attacked by the students of the Ukrainian Gymnasia [High School] in Stryj. There were also many attacks on Jewish homes, as well as the community building. Tzelem, a Jew from Borysław, was murdered in the city in 1936. That year, many Jews in the city and the area were beaten and injured. The Poles and the Ukrainians blamed each other.

When the war broke out, the Soviets entered Skole after September 20, 1939. They expropriated Jewish businesses, and large estates and houses. They gradually restricted private commerce and dismantled the communal institutions and public organizations. Jews attempted to obtain work in government institutions and enterprises so as to earn a livelihood and to earn the status of the “productive” element.

After the war between Germany and the Soviet Union broke out on June 22, 1941, a small number of Jews of Skole followed after the retreating Soviet authorities. Some were drafted into the Red army. The Hungarian Army entered Skole at the beginning of July 1941. The Ukrainians perpetrated attacks against the Jews in the villages of the area. The Hungarians did the best they can to restrict the extent of these attacks.

The government of Skole passed to the Germans at the beginning of August 1941. A Judenrat was quickly set up, headed by Bers, a member or chairman of the communal council of Skole before the war. After a brief time, a large fine was imposed upon the Judenrat: three kilograms of gold, twenty kilograms of silver, and 80,000 rubles (or zloty) of cash. According to one version, the fine was paid, and according to another version, the chairman of the Judenrat did not succeed in collecting the amount that was set, and he was murdered by the Germans. The day he was murdered is not known. The Judenrat provided the Germans with a labor force. All Jewish men in Skole between the ages of fourteen and sixty were obligated in forced labor. The guards tormented the Jews during the forced labor. There were also murders. Only those who were regular employees in the institutions and enterprises of the Germans or Ukrainians were exempt from forced labor. As far as is known, the Jews were not forced to move to a separate quarter.

In December 1941, the Gestapo men conducted a roll call of the Jewish workers in the Gödel sawmill. Twenty of the workers, whom the Germans designated as not fit for work, were brought to the nearby forest and shot to death.

The first deportation aktion in Skole took place on September 2-4, 1942. Transport trucks arrived at night with men from the German police. Some of them drove to collect the Jews from the nearby villages, and the rest – German and Ukrainian police officers – surrounded the city and broke into the Jewish houses. The Jewish police officers accompanied them there. The Jews were gathered into a yard next to the courthouse. They remained there for a day or two without food or water. Apparently, the rest of the Jews of the area were brought there. Approximately one hundred people, the sick and the weak, were shot on the spot during that aktion. All of those gathered next to the courthouse were transported or brought on foot to the railway station, and transported in sealed wagons to Stryj, where a murder aktion was also taking place. From there, they were transported to the Belzec death camp along with the local Jews. Many Jews jumped from the wagons along the way, but only a few succeeded in returning to Skole. Most of those deported in that aktion were of the “non-productive” element – the elderly, weak, sick, and children below the age of fourteen.

After that aktion, only nine hundred Jews remained in Skole. Some of them were employed in workplaces that were vital of the German economy. Those workers were promised that they would remain in the place and not be sent away at all. After a few weeks (in September or October 1942) the local German authorities ordered that these workers be housed together, whereas the rest of the Jews were obligated to move to the regional ghetto in Stryj. A panic overtook the Jews of Skole. Everyone attempted through various means – through contacts or bribery – to be included in one of those five or six workplaces. Thus, several hundred Jews were housed in two camps, from where they were led to work. Several tens of Jews

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escaped to the forests of the area, and only about one hundred were forced to move to Stryj. According to one source, the German police organized a manhunt in Skole already before the command was issued to concentrate the workers in camps (apparently, on October 18, 1942). 175 Jews were caught, nine of whom were shot on the spot as they attempted to escape. The rest were transferred to Stryj, where one of the deportation aktions was taking place at that time.

The Jews who were concentrated in the two camps worked primarily in woodcutting in the forest, transporting lumber, and in the nearby sawmills. Their number constantly decreased due to the selektions that took place from time to time, the murders, and also in the wake of the escape of Jews to the forest. One camp was exterminated in June 1943, and the one hundred Jews who were there were murdered. The second ghetto, which also contained about one hundred Jews, was liquidated in August of that year. They were shot or sent to the labor camp in Bolechów. Once again, some Jews succeeded in escaping to the nearby forests prior to the extermination. It is estimated that from tens up to one hundred Jews from Skole hid in the forests. They suffered in dugouts in the ground, and were also forced to endlessly change their hiding places, for the German and Ukrainian police officers pursued them and killed them. Some were not able to withstand the difficult conditions, and turned themselves into the Germans and their assistants.

Following the liberation of the city by the Soviet army on August 9, 1944, approximately twenty survivors from the city and the area, who had endured the German occupation in the forests or with farmer acquaintances, gathered in Skole. They were forced to continue to hide on account of the nationalist Ukrainians, who would kill Jews, until they moved to larger cities. Aside from them, several Jews who had crossed the border to Hungary, and about twenty people who remained alive in the Soviet Union, also survived. Only one Jew lived in Skole after the war, and the end was that the Ukrainians murdered him.

Sources

Yad Vashem Archives: M1/Q 1425/258; M-2/236; 03/1276
Central Archives of the Jewish People (Amt'y) : P 83 (E 33) P 83 (F3)
Central Zionist Archive: A 214-6; F 3-3; S 5-1764; Z 4-234/11 C: Z 4-2996
“Tagblatt” October 9, 1918, December 14, 1923; “Yiddisher Arbeiter” April 3, 1914, November 27, 1914, October 4, 1918; “Morgen” July 1, 1927, August 3, 1928, December 10, 1928; “Hamitzpe” May 6, 1910; “Di Tzioniste Vach” May 5, 1932, September 20, 1933, July 27, 1934; “Der Kempf” August 12, 1932; “Shavua Hechalutz” May 31, 1924.
“Chwila” 1920-1937; “Chwila Wieczorna” April 18, 1934; February 13, 1935, July 10, 1935, July 28, 1936, August 2, 1937, September 17, 1937, January 12, 1938, July 23, 1938, August 24, 1938, December 19, 1938, January 12, 1939, May 10, 1939, May 13, 1939, August 2, 1939, August 23, 1939, November 11, 1939; “Hanoar Hacijoni” January 1, 1939; “Przyszłość” December 5, 1887, August 20, 1894; “Wschód” December 28, 1900, July 30, 1901, December 16, 1903, August 30, 1907, January 24, 1908, August 5, 1910, August 11, 1911; “Zew Młodych” 1937 no. 2.

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