DOLINA

DOLINA:     US Commission No. UA08180101
Alternate name: Dolina (Ukraine). Dolina is located in Ivano-Frankovskaya at 48º58 24º1, 107 km from Lvov and 60 km from Ivano-Frankovsk. The cemetery is located at Staraya Dolina, Vinnichenko Street. Present town population is 5,001-25,000 with 11-100 Jews.

• Town officials: Village Executive Council of Stetsko Valdimir Ivanovich [Phone: (03477) 22544].
  
• Regional officials: Regional State Administration of Chairman -Galiv Mikhail Yuryevich [Phone: (03477) 22504]. Oblast State Administration of Skripnichuk Vasiliy Mikhaylovich [Phone: (03422) 25204].
  
• Jewish Community of Ivano-Frankovsk, Starchenyh styr. 7, sinagogua [Phone: (03422)34894].
  
• Others: Main Architect of Dolina Region - Koziy Roman Nikolayevich [Phone: (03475) 22518].

     The earliest known Jewish community was 17th century. 1939 Jewish population (census) was 2014. In 1867, the Jews received all rights of Austro-Hungary. The last known Hasidic Jewish burial was 1940. No other towns or villages used this unlandmarked cemetery. The isolated urban flat land has no sign or marker. Vinnichenko Street reaches it. Access is open to all. No wall, fence, or gate surrounds this cemetery. 21 to 100 stones, more than 75% toppled or broken, date from 1920. Location of removed stones is unknown. The cemetery has only common tombstones and no known mass graves. The municipality owns property used for agricultural use (crops or animal grazing). Properties adjacent are residential. The cemetery boundaries are smaller now than 1939 because of housing development and agriculture. Private visitors (Jewish or non-Jewish) and local residents visit occasionally. The cemetery was vandalized during World War II and not in the last 10 years. There is no maintenance now. Within the limits of the cemetery are no structures. Water drainage at the cemetery is a seasonal problem. Very serious threat: vandalism. (The vandalism destroyed the tombstones and may destroy the cemetery). Moderate threat: uncontrolled access, existing nearby development or proposed nearby development. Slight threat: weather erosion, pollution and vegetation.
     Hodorkovskiy Yuriy Isaakovich of Kiev, Vozduhoflotskiy Prospect 37A, Apt. 23 [Phone: (044) 2769505] visited site on 2/6/96. No interviews were conducted. He completed survey on 03/08/1996. Documentation: Jewish Encyclopaedia , Wasintynski: B. Ludnosc Zydowska w Polsce w wiekach XIX i XX , Warszawa, 1930.
     UPDATE: In a nearby small valley was a stone monument with a brief inscription "In memory of the citizens of Dolina who were murdered by the Fascists in 1943." There was no further indication of who these murdered citizens might be. A passer-by, when asked where the Jewish cemetery was, pointed to a rutted roadway, almost a path. We drove up that to what appeared to be a semi-rural housing area on one side of the road with chickens and geese pecking in the small cultivated front yards and a grassy common on the right. This area that we assumed was a "common area" with goats tethered to graze and chickens pecking away was the remains of the Jewish cemetery of Dolina. At the ground level, many graves remained, but all of the upright stones were gone; and many of the ground level stone or concrete pebble grave covers were at least partially broken. Not one letter of inscription remained. The cemetery was on high ground and the edge opposite the rutted roadway fell away as a cliff, perhaps two hundred feet above the surrounding landscape. A small space recently fenced with concrete tablets of the Law had been prepared by the Nissenbaum Foundation that has restored a number of Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe. Despite the goats, chickens and children playing, the cemetery had certain grandeur. Source: Sophie Caplan, Sydney, Australia