This page was created in loving memory of those who lived and died there, of those who
ventured out, and all who left a legacy for future generations.
Where is Rohatyn?
Rogatin, a major town in the Ukraine, is located 69 kilometers SE of L'viv
at longitude 49° 25´ and latitude 24° 37´. From 1792 until 1919 it was known as Rohatyn, in the Austrian province of Galicia , ....from 1919 until 1945 it was part of Poland .....and then it became part of the Ukraine.
Nearby towns with Jewish Populations include (alphabetically),
Berezhany (14mi E),
Bobrka (20 mi NW),
Burshtyn (10 mi S),
Bukachevtsy(13 mi SSW),
Kulhynicze (1900: 1670/680)
Knyaginichi (7mi W),
Narajow (10mi NE),
Peremyshlyany (17 mi N),
Podkamien (6 mi WNW, 1900: 1439/118)),
Podgrodzie (1900: 1058/60),
Stratin (5 mi NE, 1900: 694/113),
Novyye Strzelishcha (12miNW) and Zuravno (19mi SW) . Bukachevtsy has its own Shtetlinks site at http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Bukaczowce/bukmain.htm
was a tailor who specialized in making uniforms for the Pravoslav priests and monks. We can trace the Eichels back to Yitzhak Eichel, who lived in Hamburg at the end of the 18th century; he was a scholar who published a textbook of the Yiddish language and was a pupil of the German philosopher Kant.
I have collected all the data sent to me on Rohatyn. Although many records were destroyed over the course of two world wars, researchers have found much that remains. The entire 1870 tax rolls are available. Vital record indexes from the Polish Archives for Rohatyn (from the late 1800s) are available on-line (see JRIP below). Maps of the area are plentiful and important, as the boundaries changed with each conquering government. If your family came from the Rohatyn area, keep in mind that the spellings of all names and places often changed along with the governments and official languages.
I hope you will find this page interesting and helpful. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or information to add. As with any genealogical research, this is an evolving project!
Signed, Phyllis Kramer, New York, NY & Palm Beach Gdns, Florida.
Copyright © 1999.
Page updated March 2008.
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Rohatyn was a wonderful town. It was located 60 kilometers from Ivano-Frankovsk and 69 kilometers from Lvov. There was a Jewish community in Rohatyn as far back as the 16th Century.
The following is a brief Timeline of the political scene over time and which country ruled Rohatyn
| from | to | country | Comment |
| early 1200s | Kievan Rus | union of Ruthenian principalities with capital in Kiev; collapsed with invasion of Tartars | |
| early 1200s | 1349 | Autonomous Principality | most powerful state in the area; war with Poland over the Cherven lands of Lublin area |
| 1349 | 1772 | Poland (Ruskie) | Galician/Polish war won by King Kasimir; Principality incorporated into Poland |
| 1772 | 1919 | Austria (Galicia) | Poland divided by Germany, Russia, Austria. Area named Galicia and ceded to Austria. |
| 1919 | 1939 | Poland | Poland reconstituted after World War I |
| 1939 | 1941 | Germany | Occupied during WW II |
| 1941 | 1944 | Russia | Overrun in WW II |
| 1944 | 1991 | Russia | part of Ukrainian S.S.R., USSR (in province Ivano-Frankovskaya) |
| 1991 | present | Ukraine | Soviet Union dissolved, Ukraine independence declared |
Most of us associate Rohatyn with Galicia, 1772 through 1918; Galicia was then a province of the Austrian Hungarian Empire. The map below shows Galicia, and Rohatyn's place in it.
Some interesting facts on the population in Rohatyn follow.
The following paragraph was adapted from a note by Ukrainian Roman Zakharii:
Galicia was occupied by Poland in 1349. Before that it was an independent Ruthenian (what we call now Ukrainian) principality. A century before that it was part of Kievan Rus, union of Ruthenian principalities with capital in Kiev. Kievan Rus collapsed in early 13 th century with the invasion of Tatars and Galician principality existed as independent and the most powerful state in the area. In 1340 s, there was a war between Galicia and Poland over the Cherven lands of the Lublin area, and Polish king Kasimir won it and conquered all Galician lands, incorporating them into the Polish kingdom; Galicia was formed into so called Wojewostwo Ruskie (in English Rus/Ruthenian voivodship). The name Galicia was applied after these lands were incorporated into Austria in 1772. Rogatin is the Russian name for Rohatyn, which is not used anymore. It was used only on Soviet maps after World War II until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. In Ukrainian it is Rohatyn, just like in Polish, German and Yiddish.
I have discovered that many of the towns around Rohatyn have multiple (and often confusing) names.
The following list contains
What does this mean to you? It means that if you are searching for family origins, then you need to search the towns surrounding Rohatyn as well as Rohatyn itself. In the 1800s and early 1900s, most marriages were arranged with adolescents from nearby towns. Thus, even tho you might know your great grandfather came from Rohatyn, there may be family information for you in nearby towns.
Do you have roots in Rohatyn? Would you like to connect with others researching the same
community? View the hundreds of folks who are researching their ancestral town of rohatyn.
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The Jews from Rohatyn must have been an organized and fervent group. I have located four separate Landsmanshaften organizations, founded in the late 1800s in New York City and one in Israel. The following are the details and the founding officers.
certificate was signed Last year I visited with the President, Herman Skolnick, who was born in Roahtyn. A lovely man who has since passed on. His wife still lives in Brooklyn, and his son Michael Skolnick, is still active in the Society, along with Yossi Benjamin, the Recording Sec. About 35 members still pay dues. This society maintains gravesites at Beth Israel, in Woodbridge New Jersey and "Old" Montefiore, in St. Albans, New York. Thanks to Herman Skolnick, all the names in these landsmanshaften plots are in a database you can query on-line. There is another landsmanshaften plot for the Independent Rohatyners Young Mens Benevelent Society at Mt Hebron. This plot is not included in the database.
The following names were contained in the Golden Jubilee Fiftieth Anniversary Banquet of the IRYA in 1953 at the Broadway Central Hotel, in various sections, including a memorial.
The minutes of this Landsmanshaften are at YIVO in New York City (Record Group 1082). They cover the years 1953 to 1977, and I believe they are written in Yiddish.
functioned as a burial society (all the gravesites have been sold). Again, there is a database which you can access; it lists the names of the folks buried in the landsmanshaften's plot in Mt. Hebron, as well
as those plots which were purchased and reserved. The source of information is Alvin Edelstein, the Cemetery Chairman of the Rohatyner Young Men's Society. Alvin inherited this position from his late father-in-law, who held it for over fifty years.
Second and third generation Rohatyners still meet annually in New York City. I'm proud to say that I am a member and have attended some meetings. I have not gotton the incorporation papers, but I do have some photographs. Pictured at the left is Mt. Hebron plot, and at the right, Mt Zion plot; both cemeteries are in Queens (New York).
The following lists members of the Rohatyner Young Men's Society, from a number of documents from their 50th Anniversary Banquet, held at the Central Plaza Hotel in NYC on December 20, 1947, a 1946 meeting, a 1950 request for contributions for the UJA Israel housing campaign, 1 1953 Installation of Officers, and a 1999 memorandum.
All the minutes of Rohatyner meetings of the first 50 years, or so, were meticulously hand written (in Yiddish) and preserved, and were given to YIVO in New York, for their use and further preservation. You can locate these records (1928-1964) and the memorial book at YIVO (Record Group 1016).
To get a list of over 1500 names from the two Rohatyn Landsmanshaften
plots in the New York City area, just send me an email with the subject "Rohatyn Landsmanshaften";
to send your email, click here. Another option for you is
to search the full list of Rohatyners buried in
Mt. Hebron cemetery online. Go to http://www.mounthebroncemetery.com/search.asp , click on Search,
and then just key Rohatyn in the town name field.
The certificate was signed B. Schencter, Sigmund Sindef, and another name, I cannot recognize.
The Annual Meeting was to be held the second Tuesday in January.