User:Ejohnson39/sandbox

History of Jews in Gorlice before German Occupation
When Gorlice was first founded there was not any Jewish communities. Most of the Jews in the area would live in villages or Polish landowners estates. There were a few reasons for Jews at this time to not live inside or Gorlice. One was the Madgeburg Rights, by living outside of Golice in villages or on estates, the Jewish communities did not have to follow the city's laws. Some of the suburbs that Jews did live in were Ropica Polska, Siary, Strezeszyn, Marianpolski and Magdaleni. Another reason that Jews were not residing in Gorlice in earlier times was because of "De non tolerandis Judaeis".  This is a privilege that some cities had during the 16th century that forbid Jewish people to live in them.

In the 18th century there were a few Jewish families living in Gorlice. When the Jews first settled in Gorlice they were mostly making a living through trading wine and corn. The first Jewish families also had a sawmill to process wood as well as trading items like wine, corn, and tobacco. Even though there were only a few Jewish families during the 18th century, when the 19th century came around there was already a Jewish community forming including their own cemetery and synagogue. It wasn't until the later half 19th century that Jewish people started really settling into the city. The Jews settling in Gorlice at that time were mostly settling in the area by the market square and it's nearby streets. This area that most Jews were settling in would in the future become the Gorlice Ghetto.

In the 19th century, when more Jews started settling inside of Gorlice, the current non-Jewish residents worked mostly in crafts and agriculture. At the time that the Jews were moving into Gorlice, there was also the discovery of oil in the Gorlice region in that later half of the 19th century. While the non-Jewish residents were working with agriculture, the Jews were prevailing in the oil industry with trade and development. In 1874, Jewish investors helped with the development of an oil refinery, along with another one nearby then in 1883.

The population of the Jews in Gorlice is not well documented or reliable before the later half of the 19th century. There are statistics on the Jewish population from 1880 to 1910 though. Looking first at the Gorlice district in 1880 there was a total of 74,072 residents and out of those 6.4% (4,755) were Jews. Just in the city of Gorlice itself, there were 2,257 jews out of the around 5,000 residents of the city which is close to 50%. The population of Jews in Gorlice grew to 7.5% of the Gorlice district composed of Jews in 1910 and 51% of residents in the City of Gorlice were Jewish at that time (3,495 out of 6,600).

Because of World War I, the population did drop from 1910 to 1921. In 1921, after the war, there were about 2,300 Jews left, which was about 41% of the population. During World War I, the Russian army was one of the main reasons for this drop in the number of Jews. There was rapes, robberies, and murders, and a lot of Jews fled Gorlice to other countries and never came back after the war.

Even though the war affected the Jewish population, they were able to get back on their feet and restore their economic status to what it was pre-war. 90% of shops in Gorlice were Jewish and 30% of craft workshops. Jews contributed a lot to Gorlice's economy and their activity was an important part of the industrial and commercial life. They were leading in trade and other services. Jews were also represented in the Municipal Authorities at this time. There were 22 members of the Town Council that were jewish in 1924 and during municipal elections that year there were 23 Jews that were elected to seats. Not only were they thriving in the economy, the Jewish life was also ideal culturally and religiously at this time. Cultural and religious life was centered around two synagogues in the city, one on Mickiewicza Street and another newer one on Piekarska Street.

When World War II started in 1939, the population of the Jews in Gorlice was back up to around 5000 which was once again above half of the residents of the city. At the start of the war a lot of Jews in Gorlice fled elsewhere before the German occupation began.