During World War I, Nadwórna was the site of a number of battles, which severely damaged the Jewish community and its economy. At the end of 1914, the Russians occupied the city, and then retreated and occupied it over and over again, until the war's end. In 1915, the Russians deported many Jewish men from the city, and a Cossack unit abused the women and children. After the end of the war, the Cossacks also plundered Jewish property. The population plummeted to approximately 2,000 people.
With the founding of the West Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918, groups of young Jews in Nadwórna gathered together to defend the community from Ukrainian looters. In 1920, six Jews in Nadwórna were murdered by forces of the Ukrainian nationalist Symon Petliura, and many were injured.
Nevertheless, the Jewish community recovered from the war, and by the beginning of the 1930s some 3,500 Jews lived in the city, about half of the total population. The Jews of Nadwórna had representatives in the municipality, and around one-third of its members were Jews.
In the 1930s, antisemitism in the city and its surroundings escalated. Jewish merchants were attacked and Polish land and factory owners called for a boycott of Jewish wagon owners. In 1937, the government contract with the 'Foresta' company – whose owners and workers in Nadwórna were Jewish – was terminated, due to intervention by antisemitic Ukrainians and Poles. The company's Jewish employees were fired. On the eve of World War II, Ukrainian nationalists were active in the region, periodically attacking the Jews.
Trade and professions
In the nineteenth century, salt began to be produced from underground springs. Crude oil was soon discovered in the same area, leading to wells being dug and the establishment of a distillation plant. The Jews of Nadwórna were employed in trade and light industry; trading included grain, wood, eggs, chickens and mushrooms. The Jews of the city also made a living as shoemakers, tailors, metal workers and glaziers, servicing the local population as well as farmers in the region. Towards the end of the century, Nadwórna had become an important regional center for agricultural produce and the wood industry. Jews owned many factories and businesses, including crude oil wells, glass manufacturing, saw and flour mills, a brewery and a match factory. There was a Jewish doctor in the city, and three Jewish midwives.
In 1907, a fire broke out in the city, destroying some 100 Jewish homes as well as a number of synagogues and prayer houses. The community rallied, and during the same period participated in the development of the city's vacation industry. Jews ran hotels, restaurants and most of the city's taverns. The majority of the wagon trade was also owned by Jews. Some 100 Jewish women laborers worked in home-based industries, mostly weaving and spinning. A group of salespersons banded together in order to demand better employment conditions. A credit association was also established for traders and industry workers.
During the early 1920s, a wood treatment factory was established under Jewish ownership, which provided raw materials for containers and export. Many Jews were employed at this factory, including members of the hachshara (pioneer agricultural training) programs in the city. The 'Foresta' company was also active in the city, leasing woodlands from the Polish authorities in order to chop timber and prepare it for export. Both the managers of the company in the city and its workers were Jewish. In 1939, a glass factory was established in Nadwórna, employing 40 Jewish workers.
Most of the Jewish tradesmen in the city belonged to the 'Achva' trade union. Craftsmen belonged to the 'Yad Harutzim' union. A charity association assisted these tradesmen and workers; in the 1930s dozens of loans were arranged on an annual basis.
Politics
From the end of the nineteenth century, branches of many Zionist parties as well as Agudath Israel and the Bund became active in Nadwórna. A number of young Jews in the city supported the Communist party.
Most of the heads of Jewish community were Hasidim. In 1938, the left-wing socialist parties became more prominent, as did the Zionist bloc, whose supporters came, for the most part, from the white-collar professions as well as tradesmen.
The Bund, Agudath Israel – which had many adherents – and many Zionist parties, including Poalei Zion, the General Zionists, the Revisionists, Mizrachi and Hapoel Mizrachi, all operated in the city. These parties established professional and academic unions, held lectures and performances, and ran youth groups and even pioneering hachsharot, whose trainees worked in Jewish-owned factories. The first Beitar hachshara in Poland was established in Nadwórna in 1929.
Education, culture, and religion
Most of the community's children were educated in traditional institutions – heders and batei midrash. From the mid-nineteenth century, the number of Jewish students at the regular schools began to grow. At the beginning of the twentieth century, courses were opened within the 'Clear Speech' framework to teach the Hebrew language, as well as courses by the 'Tarbut' educational network. These courses continued to run in Nadwórna until the eve of World War II. The city's public library, housing some 2,000 titles in Polish, Yiddish and Hebrew, was restored after being damaged during World War I. Many young people were active in the 'Hakoach' and 'Maccabi' sports associations.
Meir Hibner, an educator and Hebrew teacher, was active in Nadwórna. Hibner was one of the outstanding publishers in Galicia; he produced publications in Yiddish and German, as well as a geographical work on Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine). Shmuel Rosenheck, an educator and a resident of the city who wrote satirical works, poems and articles, headed the 'Tarbut' network of Hebrew-language schools in Poland; he eventually became one of the founders of Haifa University.
Nadwórna had over 20 prayer houses, including kloizim (small synagogues) of all the Hasidic dynasties in the region: Kosov, Vizhnitz, Chortkov, Otynia and Belz. A number of admorim (Hasidic leaders) lived in Nadwórna; the last of these, Rabbi Chaim Leiper, was murdered in the Holocaust.
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