Relationet VI SO 41 X RU

Introduction

2005-05-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

Zvi Schwartzman, son of a holocaust survivor, has been working with the Tel Aviv- based engineering college on a unique project that will have Israeli high school students trying to find lost relatives of the holocaust survivor through blogs on the Google search engine. They will interview the survivor and upload an "Online Diary" of the survivor on the blog. By the internet the students may help the survivor to get new information about their families and their relatives that they haven't seen since the end of the World War II. After the one who is in charge of this project asked for the survivor's permission for posting the survivor's details, the student will upload the survivor's information and details to the blog which they created. Later the student will be asked to search other databases, like Yad Vashem archives, to get more information. The people who read the blogs will be able to read comments. The student who is in charge of the survivor blog will get anE-mail message when there will be a new connection with the survivor.

Geography Of Chelm- Poland

2004-12-21T04:32:00.000-08:00

The region between the Wieprz River and the middle reach of the Bug river with Volhynia Polesie ["Woodlands"] in which Chełm lies is a borderland between Maritime Western Europe (Lublin Uplands in the west and south) and continental Eastern Europe ( mainly plains in the Lublin Polesie in the east and north). The city originated within isolated, not infrequently rounded Chełm Knolls, and took its name from such a chalk knoll - ostaniec [monadnock] (Old Slavonic and Pre-Polish word) 221 metres above the sea level in height, on which the historic centre of the city is situated (the so called High Hill - 237m). The Chełm Knolls constitute the north-easternmost part of the of the Lublin Uplands bordering in the west with the Dorohucza Sinkhole, in the south with the Grabowieckie Divides, in the east with the Dubienka Sinkhole and in the north with the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District. In the Mesozoic era this area as well as nearly the whole Lublin Pre-Uplands were flooded with sea water and on the bottom there formed carbonate deposits - both soft ones (writing chalk and marls)
and harder rocks (rocks with siliceous framework). In the Tertiary Period starting the Cenozoic Era there formed sandstones as a result of the successive withdrawal of the sea towards the south. Less resistant rocks gave way to vast valleys, whereas more resistant ones remained in the form of isolated elevations dominating the landscape. The so called Odra [Oder] glaciation which occurred in the early Quaternary (Pleistocene) came to a halt at the verge of the Chełm Knolls. Then the sands and fluvial-glacial clays transported by the glacier covered the monadnock carbonate rocks with overlays. Afterwards there occurred the process of karst formation, i.e. dissolution of those rocks by surface and underground waters (the so called phenomenon of covered karst), consequently, characteristic forms of topographic profile formed - sinkholes, valleys and hollows. At present they are filled either with overflows and low peat bogs the strata of which reach up to 3 m in depth or with meadows. The late Quaternary period is already connected with the existence of man and the development of his culture. There were conditions within the Chełm Knolls fit for life and defence of human communities (limestone rocks, flint for tool making), which must have been conducive to primeval settlement.The Chełm Knolls constitute a region relatively rich in water. They are drained by right-bank tributaries of the Wieprz River and left- bank tributaries of the Bug River including the Uherka River on which Chełm is located. In the bottom of the waterlogged valley of this river crisscrossed with a network of ditches, peat bogs and karst hollows are common, being periodically filled with water and in the nearby Chełm Knolls, particularly in the divide of the Wieprz and Bug Rivers, not infrequently water springs occur. Unique landscape combined with interesting flora and fauna was the reason for the creation of the Chełm Landscape Park in the river basin of the middle reach of the Uherka River.The Chełm Knolls are situated within the so called Lublin-Chełm climatic region characterised by an annual rainfall of about 500 - 600 mm and an average annual actual temperature of 7.5 degrees Celsius. Climate like this is described as temperate with elements of the continental one.The nearby area with features of transitional landscape between lowlands and highlands with vast sinkholes was conducive to the natural development of commercial and political routes intersections in all geographical directions.Owing to its position being also on the cultural (ethnic and religious) borderland between western and eastern Slavonic lands, Chełm had to assume a "borderland" character and become a city of, for the most part, peaceful coexistence and mutual interpenetration of borderland cultures - Polish and Russian in particular, later also Jewish and intermittently German. The city had that colourful face up to the 1940s. It was one of the main reasons for the extremely stormy vicissitudes Chełm was to experience throughout its history. Since its very beginning it had been a subject of dynastical and political disputes as to its territorial status. And it was a significant administrative centre in the structures of the successive states (principality, volost, land, province, district, tsyrcul, region, land county, gubernia, township - municipal county) and in ecclesiastical structures (Christian dioceses of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox denominations, Jewish religious community) as well as a cultural centre.The unique durability of the state border on the Bug river made Chełm find itself on the periphery of its historic territory as early as the 19th century. Contemporarily, there are no major chances for development in the parallel grid. High hopes for further growth are connected with the functioning of the local-government municipal county and possible development of the Bug River Euro-region. This beautiful river called "Bug", once extolled by Zygmunt Gloger - can and should unite again, though this time in a different way. In connection with Poland entering the European Union structures, Chełm being a borderland city seems to have a great trump card enabling it to become the Gate of the West into the East.

© The Development and Promotion Department

The History Of Chlem- Poland

2004-12-21T03:13:00.000-08:00

On the area of Chełm and in its environs there are numerous vestiges of the existence and influence of great cultural regions as well as the sojourns of earlier local prehistoric communities. The oldest two testimonies to the settlement in the present administrative borders of the city date back to the late Palaeolithic Period (11 - 10 thousand years BC) and probably may be linked to the "bit culture", and one dates back to the Mesolithic Period (c. 8 thousand years BC).The Neolithic Age (3500 - 1800 years BC) - as well as the periods following it - brought a cultural intensification and diversification of settlement represented by the peoples of the Lublin - Volhynia culture of painted pottery, funnel-shaped cups, round amphorae (Serebryszcze, Kol. Czułczyce) and string pottery. Settlement places of the Mierzanowicka and Strzyżowska cultures come from the early Bronze Age (3-2 thousands years BC) and those of Trzcinecka culture date back to the late Bronze Age (1700/1600 - 1300 BC).Big settlements and crematory burial grounds of the Lusatian culture (e.g. in Chełm itself) come from the middle Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. Culturally unidentified places and places of the Western-Slavonic Wend culture also known as Przeworsk culture date back to the younger periods of the Iron Age - pre - Roman period also known as "La Tene" period (the last four centuries BC) and Roman influences (the first four centuries AD).

In the early middle ages the Chełm Region was connected with the Lędzian tribes and the Dulebów - Bużan - Volhynian tribes, being under the influence of the little state of the Vistulans with its centre in Krakow and the Rus state forming at that time. However, archaeological finds prove that in the period from the 6th to the 10th centuries the area between the Wieprz and Bug Rivers was inhabited by pre-Polish population and from the middle of the 10th century it was already included within the Gniezno state of the Polanie. Russian elements may have appeared here only at the end of the 10th century, which would be connected with the beginnings of the rivalry for the area. The history of the region cannot be wholly identified with that of the so called Czerwień Castles because the area which we are interested in constituted a part of the Polish State up to the beginning of the 13th century. The oldest municipal settlement in Chełm (pre-city - embryonic city) existed on the fields once called Zasłupie ["Behind the post"] (name derived from the word post - the Bieławińska Tower), north of the Chełm Hill - centre of the later castle and municipal settlement. A castle of wood and stone was built by the pre-Polish Lędzians on the High Hill in the 10th century. Settlements situated in close proximity constituted its base and they can be even regarded as an early-municipal settlement. That alleged castle-city complex was destroyed at the beginning of the 13th century and woods grew on the nearby area.The appearance of the castle including a palace and a municipal settlement in Chełm as well as the beginnings of the Eastern Orthodox denomination diocese established in 1220 in Uhrusk and then moved in c. 1240 to the then capital Chełm are connected with prince Daniel Romanovich, ruler of the principalities of Galicia and Volhynia (he was king of Rus from 1253, his grandson George I is also supposed to have received the royal crown from the pope in c. 1300). The eastern orthodox diocese transitorily - despite the eastern schism - used to be in union with the Roman Catholic Church as early as the middle ages, it functioned as uniate in the years 1596 - 1875, afterwards (1905 - 1915, formally until 1923 and between 1940 - 1944) as an eastern orthodox one again. At present the seat of the bishop of the Lublin-Chełm eparchy is in Lublin.In the years 1340 - 1387 the Chełm region was a subject of fighting for succession after the principality of Galicia and Volhynia between the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Hungary, and in the preceding century there were three Tatar invasions with which plots of legends and the genesis of the chalk undergrounds in Chełm are connected. Eventually Queen Jadwiga regained the region for the Polish Crown. In this decisive period a Roman Catholic diocese began to exist in Chełm, which was connected with the nomination of the first bishop in 1359 and the establishment of the diocese in 1375 due to Casimir III the Great's efforts. But it was Wladyslaw II Jagiello who was to become the restorer and founder of the diocese. Thanks to the king's money a cathedral was built in Chełm in c. 1417 "in remembrance of the victory at Grunwald", to which local knights contributed. After 1410 the seat of the bishop was in Krasnystaw. The Chełm diocese - which included the Zamoshc region and areas on the other side of the Bug River including Lubomel, Sokal and Magierów - was subordinated to the Galician (later Lviv) metropolis and functioned until 1807 and afterwards transitorily (until 1826) as the Chełm- Lublin diocese. The present Lublin archdiocese is its continuation. On 7th of January 1392 still in the castle in Lubomel on the other side of the Bug River Wladyslaw II Jagiello gave to the since then royal city of Chełm a privilege transferring it from "the Polish and Russian Law to the German Law also called Magdeburg Law", that deed being supplemented with another document issued on 28th September 1425 in Żuków (Żukowice). Chełm was an important political and administrative centre in the Kingdom of Poland, being the capital of the land and the county comprised in it (with the Lubomel and Ratneńskie counties situated on the other side of the Bug River as well as an enclave containing the Hrubieszów county and Kryłów volost). Within that land there were the Krasnystaw county with Tarnogóra, Żółkiewka, Szczebrzeszyn, Krasnobród and later Zamoshc. It had a large degree of autonomy, only formally belonging to the Rus (Lviv) Province [Voivodship] with which it had almost no border. In Poland before the partitions it was to achieve a unique status, though it was based only on customs. In reality it was not second to provinces (of course, except for the lack of the office of the province head). Already in the first half of the 15th century Chełm was a constant place of its own regional land assembly sittings at which two MPs to the Sejm [National Parliament] were to be elected, and later also one deputy to the Crown Tribunal. City and land boards functioned here with the offices of castellan (senatorial - similar to bishops of the Roman Catholic denomination) and junior head of the province. There existed a certain hierarchy of land officials, and the self-government of the nobility was the most developed one in the whole country. The Chełm land was to become famous in the 16th century for the civic attitude of the middle nobility, in particular of the Dissenters, - producing several significant parliamentary agitators ( Chełm chamberlains Mikołaj Siennicki, the father of the Polish oratory called "the Demosthenes of the Polish Parliamentary Sessions" and Paweł Orzechowski), becoming the cradle of the progressive movement of "rights and property execution" and in 1572 the birthplace of the archetype of a confederation exercising authority during interregnums (besides Siennicki, Chełm standard-keeper [State official] Stanisław Orzechowski became renowned at that time). The office of interrex was then held for the first time in history by the primate Jakub Uchański coming from the Chełm land and formerly being the bishop of the local diocese. Mikołaj Rej who lived and died here was an MP of the Chełm Land.In that period there functioned a unique underground chalk "mine" - the work of the local Jews (known for their facetiae, examples of which can be found in collected works of Horacy Safrin "At Sabbath Candles" or "In Noah's Ark" published by the Łódź Publishers). The oldest references to them date back to the years 1440 - 1454 and they are known to have been traditionally mainly engaged in trade. In the 16th century there was a yeshiva (a higher school for the studying of the Talmud and other rabbinical writings) in the city. In the 19th century rabbi Nata, who started the local dynasty of "tzaddiqim", was a rabbi here. Hassidim Jews had their prayer house here. In the interwar period people of Mosaic religion constituted one half of the inhabitants of the city in which as many as five Jewish newspapers appeared. The building of a small synagogue from 1914 has survived as well as a kirkut (cemetery) - the beginnings of which date back to the second half of the 16th century - devastated by the Nazis and recently renovated, on which over one hundred heavily damaged macew (tombstones) have survived. The last generation of the Chełm Jews and those living nearby was exterminated by the Nazis in Sobibór near Włodawa (an extermination camp where in 1943 there was a revolt and the only instance of group escape of inmates), Bełżec and Majdanek.The Jewish population suffered much earlier during the rebellion of Bogdan Chmielnicki when the worship of the icon of the Chełm Holy Virgin was spreading throughout the country because of its connection with the victory at Beresteczko in 1651. As King John II Casimir Vase was accompanied by the uniate bishop Jakub Susza (known as the author of"Phoenix tertiato redivivus") as his chaplain with the marvellous icon. Church fair celebrations on 8th September were even broadcast by the Polish Radio in the interwar period, and today the Holy Virgin worship is alive in the former uniate cathedral raised to the rank of collegiate church with the Lesser Basilica title.In the 17th and 18th centuries excellent schools existed in Chełm - the Basilian Academy possessing the largest collection of books in the city and the Piarist College transformed in the period of the Enlightenment into a sub-faculty school of the Commission for National Education. In the latter one Samuel Chruściński among others, the author of the first Physics Textbook in the Polish language and Ethics Textbook lectured. Paweł Antoni Fontana's late "Chełm" Baroque has unique features and is among others represented by three churches in the city (Saint Apostles Sending Out, Birth of the Holy Virgin and Saint Andrew the Apostle ones) and the palace in Serebryszcze in close proximity to Chełm. The years from 1715 to 1717 brought the participation of the Chełm Land nobility in the confederation of Tarnogród aimed at thwarting king Augustus' II attempts to introduce absolute authority with the help of a Saxon army. Whereas the fact of abducting, imprisoning and sending into a 6-year-long exile of four Polish MPs by the Russians -including the commander-in-chief of the Polish army and head of the Chełm county Wacław Rzewuski (playwright, comedy writer and poet) with his son Seweryn (later one of the Targowica leaders) - after half a century was to become one of the direct reasons for the Confederation of Bar after the defeat of which the first partition of Poland took place. As a consequence, the southern part of the Chełm land and diocese got under the rule of Austria.Tadeusz Koshciuszko was connected with the Chełm Land, he stayed in various circumstances in Sosnowica, Chełm (1791) and Włodawa and in the defensive war with Russia in 1792 he rose to fame in the campaign on the Bug River line and in the Battle of Dubienka (18th July).On 23rd November 1793 at the partitioning Parliament session in Grodno the Chełm Province was set up for the first time, within its borders the Parczew and Łuków lands were included.The citizens of the Chełm Land were the first to join the Koshciuszko Insurrection begun in Krakow, fully supporting the political and social programme of the Chief who in an Appeal on 11th April 1794 pointed to the example of their patriotism. Chełm under the leadership of the uniate bishop Porfiriusz Ważyński became an important centre of the insurrection and the battle fought by the corps of gen. Józef Zajączek close to the city with the participation of two thousand local peasants commanded by colonel Michał Chomentowski was one of the four largest battles of the Insurrection.In consequence of the third partition and fall of Poland in 1795 the whole area of the Chełm land on the western side of the Bug River was included into the Austrian annexation, in 1809 it found itself in the Duchy of Warsaw and in the years 1815 - 1915 within the Polish Kingdom under the Romanovs' rule.
The Kamieński family from Ruda, Henryk Jr in paricular, distinguished themselves on the pages of the November Insurrection. Henryk Kamieński Jr later became the ideological leader of the Lublin conspiracy and afterwards of the whole Association of the Polish Nation. His prolific journalism reached the heights of the Polish political and cultural thought. In 1840 a secret conspiracy functioned in the Chełm theological seminary under the Latin name Fraternitas ("Fraternity") under the leadership of the seminarian Henryk Szymański which was connected with the Association of the Polish People. On 5th July 1863 Chełm was attacked by the combined units of J. Rucki, K. Ćwiek-Cieszkiewicz and W. Eminowicz. On 2nd November the Lublin unit of Walery Kozłowski reached Chełm and rested on the local Parish Cemetery. During his fights with the troops of major Emanov garrison he briefly took the city losing a few men and afterwards withdrew in the direction of Siedliszcze. In the end, on 9th November gen. Michał Kruk-Heydenreich with the help of a few units inflicted a defeat on the Russians. Altogether within the borders of the present land county over 20 battles and skirmishes were fought-the biggest ones at Malinówka near Sawin and Depułtycze near Chełm.After the fall of the insurrection the so called Chełm affair inseparably connected with the whole concept of the russification of the Vistula Country - its eastern border counties in particular - came into notice of nearly all the civilised world. The evolution of that concept determined the czardom moves towards the Chełm Land and Podlasie described as the Chełm Region, the Chełm Rus or Russian territory on the left bank of the Bug River which were supposed to become "Russian Ulster."The first among the most important phases of the russification operation was the winding up of the Uniate Chełm Diocese, carried out in a very brutal manner by 1875. It was aimed at increasing the number of Eastern Orthodox Church believers treated as Russian population. After 1839 when the union on the "annexed lands" (within the borders of the Russian Empire) had been administratively dissolved, the Chełm-Bełz diocese was the only one under the Russian rule comprising the territories of the Augustów, Podlaska and Lublin Roman Catholic dioceses as well as branches in Warsaw and Krakow. Dissenting uniates, Roman Catholic priests attending to their spiritual needs and those Poles who supported their adherence to the faith of their fathers became heroes of the fight for the "language and land" at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.

As a result of the Tolerance Decree issued by Tsar Nicholas II in 1905 the number of Catholics of the Roman Catholic denomination in the Chełm land and Podlasie increased by 200 thousand former uniates.In 1912 a distinct Chełm province was created and separated from the general-province of Warsaw, and in 1915 it was decided that it should be separated from the Polish Kingdom and joined to the Russian Empire. The new organisational entity comprised 8 eastern counties of the Lublin and Siedlce Provinces (the latter disappearing with that move) on the area of 13,644 km2, despite the fact that Russians prevailed in numbers - according to Russian government statistics - only in the Włodawa and Hrubieszów counties. The invader did not manage to implement the act on the Separation of the Chełm Land as in the summer of 1915 the area of the province found itself under the occupation of the Central Powers. The southern part of the former province with Chełm and Krasnystaw became a part of the General Province of Lublin and under the Act dated 5th November 1916 it was included in the new Polish Kingdom. The northern part found itself in a zone subject to the German Phase Command of the Supreme Command of the East Army (so called Ober Ost). Imperialist German circles created a project to make the Chełm Land the "Ukrainian Piedmont" in connection with which they led to the finalization of the "bread peace" with Ukraine in Brest-Litovsk upon Bug. The document signed there provided for, among other things, ceding to Ukraine a territory of 16,000 km2, an area larger then the Russian Province, on which the Ukrainian population constituted 30% of the inhabitants. The Brest Treaty, similar to the former Russian moves, met with a unanimous condemnation of the Polish public and partly the European public as another attempt to partition Poland and gave rise to significant repercussions on the international arena. Due to various considerations its provisions were not implemented but the precedent was set. The Soviets and the Ukrainians did not give up for a long time (at least up to 1944) the idea of severing the territory between the Bug and Wieprz Rivers from Poland.

On 2nd November 1918 Chełm - as the first city in former Congress Poland - was liberated from the Austrian occupation as a result of a spectacular operation conducted by the officers of the Polish Military Organisation G. Orlicz-Dreszer, S. Grzmot-Skotnicki and L. Kmicic-Skrzyński - all of them were later renowned generals in independent Poland. The first of them as a military commander of Chełm and afterwards of the local Military District formed the 1st Regiment of Light-Cavalrymen (later performing representative functions for the President of the Republic of Poland) and commanded the Operational "Chełm" Group in the first phase of the battle with the forces of the People's Republic of Western Ukraine at Dołhobycze in December 1918.During the war with the Soviet Russia the command of the Southern Front under the leadership of gen. E. Śmigły-Rydz was stationed in Chełm. In the crucial days from 30th July to 2nd August 1920 even the commander-in-chief Józef Piłsudski lodged in Chełm. According to Kazimierz Czernicki it was then that the brilliant plan to repel the Red Army was conceived. The chief was nine times in his lifetime in various circumstances in the Chełm Land. On 19th March 1920 he, among other things decorated the standards of the Regiments of Cavalry which distinguished themselves in combat and one year later - during a great military parade - the heroes of the war with the Virtuti Militari orders. The first Marshal of Restored Poland, an honorary citizen of the Chełm City, personally decided the dispute - as the prime minister and Minister of Military Affairs - with Lublin over the location of the State Railways Board which was being transferred from Radom at that time.

The Vistulan Railway reached Chełm in 1877 and ten years later the line to Włodawa started to operate and it went further to Brest on the eastern side of the Bug River. In the interwar period the latter line belonged to the Vilnius State Railways Board. Nearby Rejowiec became an important railway junction on the route to Lviv and Vladimir-Volynskiy. Losses caused by armies moving around and the evacuation of the Russians in 1915 could only in a small degree be made up for by the extensive agriculture, poorly developed sugar, cement and glass-works industries. In those circumstances the development of the railways with its accompanying infrastructure gained special social, economic and cultural significance. The building of "the Edifice" and the "Board" housing estate in the years 1928 - 1939 designed for 25,000 inhabitants was the largest after the Gdynia Project (in both cases A. Kuncewicz and A. Paprocki were the architects) enterprise of town-planning in the Poland of the interwar period. The implementation of that one and smaller outside projects was accompanied by manifold local actions enriching the educational, cultural, literary and paper-reading traditions of the region. The "Kamena" poetic periodical published by the teachers K.A. Jaworski and Z. Waśniewski at the public's expense, in which e.g. Czesław Miłosz published his poems could be cited as an example. Chełm - as the seat of "double" authorities, municipal (status of singled out city from 1st April 1928) and county ones - aspired to become a significant centre in relation to Włodawa and Hrubieszów, as a result of which, there appeared a project to bring out "The Bug Annals" weekly paper reaching those cities.The Red Army occupied the Chełm Land from 25th September (on that day in Chełm two surplus battalions of the 35th Infantry Division and uniformed & armed postmen resisted valiantly the encroaching divisions of the 15th Rifle Corps for several hours) to 8th October 1939 (the city itself was left by the Soviets a day before). Afterwards, according to the amendments to the Molotov-ribbentrop Pact introduced by the agreement about borders and friendship the Red Army moved back behind the Bug River. German Army took its place and in December 1939 the USSR and the Third Reich entered into another agreement concerning the exchange of population, which led to its insignificant displacement. During the period of Nazi occupation in Chełm there functioned: a prison, transit camp, labour camp, prisoner-of-war camp for the ranks and non-commissioned officers (Stalag 319 A - Okszowska Street and B - Borek Forest; over 90 thousand died) with branch camps in Włodawa and Żmudź and a Jewish ghetto. The Psychiatric Hospital, the mart, Borek Forest with the so called "Frying Pan" (it cost the lives of c. 100 thousand human beings) and the Kumowa Valley were places of execution . In the civil and armed fight with the invader there were particularly engaged the Chełm Branch of the Home Army [AK in Polish] (in the Chełm, Krasnystaw and Włodawa districts), the community of the 7th Infantry Regiment of the Legions and solders from the 27th Volhynian Infantry division of the Home Army. The victorious battle at Wojsławice (17th April 1944) was the most important military operation in which the combined forces of the Home Army, Peasants' Battalions, People's Army and a Soviet guerrilla unit were commanded by lieutenant Witold Fałkowski, pseudonym Wik. The guerrilla Republic of Wojsławice is talked about in that area to this day.Following the liberation of the Chełm Land and Chełm itself on 22nd July 1944 "the Workers Peasants Red Army" stayed on the Bug area until 1947 supporting the local "people's authorities". Soviet solders often behaved here as conquerors of an invaded country. In the "Lublin Poland" men from four classes were conscripted to the Second Army of the Polish Forces. Recruits of its autonomous unit - 1st Armoured Corps, in particular 1st Brigade of Motorised Infantry, were trained on the Chełm Land in the period from August 1944 to February 1945. Military College of Artillery and Military College of Armoured Forces started to function in Chełm.The security services (Citizens' Militia and Security Service) - just like the Red Army - did not have a good opinion not only among the local population but also among the local administrative authorities. In the area there operated armed underground (formed from the Home Army) which after 2nd September 1945 was included in the military structures of the "Freedom and Independence" Association. Henryk Lewczuk's, pseudonym "Hammer", guerrilla unit revealed itself in the Chełm district only in March 1947, and Roman Kaszewski, pseudonym "Zdybek" acted in the underground until October. Free elections after the war announced in Jalta had never taken place. Chełm was described as "the cradle of the people's authority" and the Chełm Land as "The Land of the July Manifesto" for successive decades, although the usurping Polish Committee of National Liberation (its members stayed in Chełm from 27th July to 1st August 1944) and its Manifesto originated in Moscow from Stalin's inspiration. Despite unlimited power of the authorities, terror used by the Security Service, the rule of the successive party secretaries and sovietisation more widespread than anywhere else in the country the tag "City of the Polish Committee of National Liberation" could not be a subject of pride for the inhabitants of Chełm, if only they knew their own roots, wanted and were able to cherish national tradition - in order to be worthy of becoming heirs of the their fathers' past.

On 31st March 1951 the city of Chełm was separated from the Chełm county of the Lublin Province forming a distinct municipal county. Whereas, on 1st June 1975 the Chełm Province was created, formally for the second time in history. On its area amounting to 3.9 thousand km2 there were four towns (Chełm, Krasnystaw, Włodawa, Rejowiec Fabryczny) and 25-26 parishes ["gmina" in Polish]. Since 1st January 1999 the city has become the seat of the municipal and land counties comprising the town of Rejowiec Fabryczny and 13 nearby parishes (Białopole, Chełm, Dorohusk, Dubienka, Kamień, Leśniowice, Rejowiec Fabryczny, Ruda Huta, Sawin, Siedliszcze, Wierzbica, Wojsławice, Żmudź) in the Lublin Province again.The "Bear City" [white bear being the symbol of the city] grew significantly after the war - though its development has been smaller than it would have been possible in the conditions of free market economy - and (especially in recent years) has become more beautiful, which is emphasised at night by lighting granite-cobbled streets with interesting structures reconstructed by archaeologists on the former Old City Market (Łuczkowski Square), a presentable pedestrian precinct (Lwowska Street) and illuminating three antique churches in the city centre. Doubtless they constitute an aesthetic highlight of Chełm scenically situated among chalk hills on the Uherka River.

Vinik Sonya

2004-11-04T03:51:00.000-08:00

Interviewers:
Ori Geuli & Lior Yadin & Sagi Kerman
TL: 972-9-7925908 , 7414704 .MOBILE: 972-52-558804
E-MAIL:truep_16@walla.com
ADDRESS: SHALDAG, 14, ALFE MEANSHE & KATZANELSON, 25, Kfar Saba, Israel.
ICQ: 166569593,

Survivor:
Code: RelatioNet VI SO 41 X RU Family Name:VINIK Adolescence Name:Sara First Name: Sonya Middle Name: X Father Name: X Middle Name: X Mother Name: X Birth Date: 1941 Town In Holocaust: Chelm Country In Holocaust: PO Profession In Holocaust: X Relationship: X Status: Single Add: Street, No: HAMASHABIM 13 Town: HOD HASHARON Country: Israel Tl: 09-7424636 Fax: X Mobile: X E-Mail: X Notes: X

Realatives:
Father- fought with the Russian army in the famous and bloody battle, the battle of Stalingrad and there he was killed.

Mother and Stepfather- Came to Israel with Sara and her sister, and settled in Pardes Hana.

Sister- now adays-?

Daughter- Live with her husband and Sara in Hod Hasharon.