This incredible short account of Libtsye who led her community in prayer as they were taken to be murdered in Rohatyn, Ukraine, is taken from a memorial book to a neighbouring shtetl, Burshtyn. It is the third in a series of posts that, following this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, I am sharing to remember women who were murdered in the Holocaust. Libtsye is one of a few pious women remembered by former Burshtyn resident Yoysef Shvarts in a section titled ‘tipn un geshtaltn’ – characters and personalities. I will share his memories of other women ritualists and healers in a separate post.

Aunt Libtsye with her prayerbook

She came from Podhorodzye (Pidhoroddya), a village near Rohatyn, a shtetl near Burshtyn. She was a good-hearted person, always smiling. She was a model of honesty, innocence and piety. She lived in poverty, but always shared what she had with those who had less.

Aunt Libtsye was a friend of Y. Fenster’s mother, may she rest in peace, and her sister, who also came from Rohatyn, a .

The surviving Jews from Rohatyn have recounted the following:

When the Jews there were herded out of the town to the brickyard to be murdered, Aunt Libtsye walked along with hundreds of pious Jewish women and children and read psalms to them outloud from her Korbn Minkhe sider.

The Korbn-Minkhe is a women’s prayerbook containing prayers written in or translated into Yiddish.

Libtsye (seated in the background) with her husband Eli Katsev (Eli the Butcher).

Cite this: Extract from: Yoysef Shvarts, “Tipn un geshtaltn” (Characters and personalities), in S. Kants ed., Sefer Burshtin, (The book of Bursztyn). Jerusalem, 1960. 263-264. Trans. Annabel Gottfried Cohen.