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Lesko
[Yiddish, Lisk] - A city in the Podkarpackie
(Sub-Carpathian) Voivodship, in the Bieszczady district; it
was granted
its town charter in 1457. Jews are first mentioned in 1542,
and sources
from 1563 indicate that there were approximately twenty
Jewish families
living here at that time. Jews were involved primarily in
trade and
crafts (often linking those two professions), and also in
granting
credit. Artisans included butchers, brewers, tailors,
clothiers,
glaziers and goldsmiths. In 1640, Jews owned 38 buildings in
Lesko, The
Community gradually grew, despite the fact that the town was
visited
several times by the plague, as well as affected by fire and
the looting
by the armies during the Northern War in 1709.
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After 1772, the town became part of the
Austrian partition. In 1880, almost 2,000 Jews lived here;
by 1921, the
number had grown to 2,400, or about 63% of the total
population. Neither
the town nor the Community had any particular economic or
political
significance. In Jewish folklore of Galicia, the town's Jews
were
synonymous with fools. In the Polish Kingdom, it was the
Jews of Chelm
who shared this rather unfair reputation. When the Second
World War
began, the town was part of the Soviet zone of occupation.
After the
Germans entered in June 1941, some of its Jews were sent to
the death
camp in Belzec, and some were taken to Zaslaw, where they
were then
killed. Lesko still has its wonderful eighteenth century
synagogue,
which today houses a museum, as well as a cemetery with
historic
gravestones, some of which date back to the mid-sixteenth
century.
(H.W./CM)
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