Delatyn

Delatyn (Делятин) is a town in the Nadvirnianskyi Raion (district) of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (province) of Ukraine. It is located 101 km west of Chernivtsi and 294.6 miles WSW of Kiev. It lies along the Prut River.

Name

Delatyn is known as Delatin, Delatyn (German), Deliatin (Hungarian), and Delyatin.

History

Delatyn became part of Poland (together with Red Ruthenia) in the 15th century. In 1772, it was seized by the Austro-Hungarian Empire together with the province of Galicia (see: Partitions of Poland). After World War One, the town was in the Second Polish Republic, in the Stanisławów Voivodeship. Located in the picturesque area, it was a popular spa, with around 1000 visitors yearly (in the late 1920s). Delatyn was captured by the Red Army in 1939 (see: Polish September Campaign).

After World War II, it was in the U.S.S.R; today it is in the Ukraine. During the Soviet times Delatyn was famous by the Kovpak's Oak which symbolizes the uncompromised hatred of Ukrainians towards Nazi Germany. Delatyn was home to a Jewish community until the fall of 1941.

Documentary film

The 1992 documentary film Return to My Shtetl Delatyn depicts filmmaker Willy Lindwer's travels with his father Berl Nuchim and his daughter Michal Delatyn to "retrace the route his father had taken six decades earlier, escaping from he Nazis and to see how the area and its inhabitants had changed.

The Independent Delatyner society

After the war, refugees from Delatyn, now living in Brooklyn, NY, formed a society, The Independent Delatyner. The President was my grandfather, Jack Holtz.

Dues collected by the members of the society were collected for the sole purpose of buying burial plots in the old Montefiore cemetery, where all members of the Independent Delatyner now rest.

These brave souls fled persecution by the Cossacks, then the Nazis, Then made lives for themselves and their children in America.

They spoke Polish, Yiddish, Russian and some German.

Trivia

Delatynite is a variety of amber found in Delatyn.

References