Koprzywnica was a small shtetl known as Pokshevnitse (in Yiddish), on the border of western Galicia. The Jewish population in 1900 was 836.

One of the articles describes the shtetl as having a charm all of its own, with the people trying to make a living from handicrafts and selling food.

Another article describes “my little, poor shtetl, Pokshevnitse, … – its Jewish population of some 250 families, concentrated mostly along the three sides of the market, all of them inhabited by Jews. I see its … characters, and its ordinary Jews…”

In 1939 there were approximately 800 Jews in the town. “Despite the lying German propaganda claiming that the oysgezidlte [deported] Jews were being sent to labor camps in the East, many already knew the bitter truth – though not everyone wanted to believe it, or was able to believe it – that the Jews were being sent, in their overwhelming majority, to destruction. … Outwardly, Shabbat still reigned in our home just as it did in all Jewish homes in the shtetl. The Shabbat candles on that last Friday evening were still lit, the challahs covered with the Shabbat cloth, kiddush was made, and the zmires were recited (not sung) — but our thoughts were already far, far away. Everyone felt that this was the last Friday night in the shtetl” (From the article “A Bundle of Memories”).

The book includes pages of testimony with photographs, a list of martyrs, and information about former residents of Koprzywnica.

Koprzywnica [Pol], Pokshevnitse [Yid], Kopshivnitsa [Rus], Kopshevnitza, Pokshivnits, Pokshivnitza