A Description of Tomaszow Lubelski A Year After My Grandfather Left

A courier from Lviv (Ukraine) described Tomaszów Lubelski in October 1913, which was only a year later than my grandfather Anthony and his brother Joseph arrived in the U.S. I have summarized his description and the link goes to the full version. The picture shows the market but many of the buildings later burned in a fire on 28 May, 1918, which broke out in the building next to the synagogue. Two thousand people lost their homes when 200 houses burned down. From the month of May until the end of September, an automobile went twice a day on a route through Tomaszow and to Lublin. The route passed a Russion customs stop where the people in charge spoke Polish. Cossacks had a building there, serving as border guards. There were white stones along both sides of the road for driving at night. The author reflected sadly that it wasn’t long before when there were no border guards. The author saw what he described as the “hideous, green painted towers” of the Orthodox church as he approached the city. The city was full of shops, stalls and mud. A horse pulling a cart struggled in the black mud. There was an obelisk in the square in memory of the reign of Nicholas II. Tobacco products were sold freely which amazed the author since as a Galicians, he said he was used to a government monopoly on cigarettes. The people in the streets spoke Polish and were dressed from an earlier time. The Cossacks attire was described as “disgustingly colored” and they “make an unpleasant impression” with “wild expressions on their faces.” Seeing them reminded the author of bloody descriptions of post-partition martyrdom. The Catholic church, there for 500 years and made of larch (a type of conifer) was blackened with age and neglect. After this negative description, he ended with “Some young people go to America for bread.” https://www.historiaregionu.org/tomaszw-lubelski Photo and story credits: https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5df8e1_d23a378c698c4920bc9789b4b16c7738~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_999,h_388,al_c,q_85/5df8e1_d23a378c698c4920bc9789b4b16c7738~mv2.webp