ZOLYNIA TODAY

Entering the country village of Zolynia. The sign on the right proclaims the community's membership in the Order of the Grunwald Cross, Class III, for underground activity during the German occupation.		The Center for Promotion and Support in Agriculture Enterprise says, "In Poland when you think of traditional wooden toys you think of Brzoza Stadnicka, Rakszawa, and Zolynia, the centers of toy production."

After the Second World War, the so-called "Iron Curtain" descended across Poland, and rose again in 1989. Since then, Poland has become a republic, a member of the NATO Alliance and a country struggling to improve the bureaucratic inefficiencies, technological lag and pollution left over from the years of Communist domination. It is still a country in transition, and attempts are being made to diversify the rural economy of southeastern Poland. Zolynia's province in particular has promoted itself as a center of tourism and an area ripe for outside investment in new commerce and industry. So far, results have been limited and Zolynia remains a country town where farming, and particularly dairy farming, is central to the lives of most residents (most of the province's farmers sell their milk to the Rzeszow Creamery Cooperative, which processes and ships dairy products throughout Poland and Europe).

Today, the villages of Zolynia, Brzoza Stadnika and Smolarzyny make up the Borough of Zolynia. This rural borough or "gmina" is 57 square kilometers (about 35 square miles) in size, with a population of 6,787. It is one of half a dozen boroughs within the Lancut-based Lancucki District (equivalent to a county or "powiat"). Twenty powiats and four cities make up the Voivodship of Podkarpackie. The sixteen new Polish voivodships (provinces) were created in 1999 and Podkarpackie is based around Rzeszow.

Zolynia is being slowly wired for fiber optic cable, the sewage treatment plant and solid waste landfill are being upgraded and other steps are being taken to attract investment and stimulate economic growth. Since 1991, a regional business organization called the Center for Promotion and Support in Agriculture Enterprise has promoted the production of handmade toys and crafts as a way for Zolynia farmers to generate extra income and jobs. Zolynia also is the home of an shop for the PSW engine parts manufacturing firm. There are three primary schools, and both a gymnazjum and a liceum ogólnoksztalcace, general secondary schools (the Polish educational system is in transition through 2004, and both new and old types of secondary schools temporarily coexist). The town has a post office, a bank, a police station, a public library with a branch outside the main town, and an assortment of small businesses.

There are no plaques or markers regarding Zolynia's lost Jewish community, though some other nearby towns are attempting to lure Jewish tourists from America, Europe and Israel. In Lancut to the south, the castle has become an impressive art museum and the annual music festival is also a large attraction. The Lancut liquor distilleries, which now bear the Potocki family crest as a logo, are also popular. But there is also a large menorah sits outside the castle, once a gift from the Lancut Jewish community to the squire. The synagogue has been restored for tours and is also a museum with photographs of the former local Jewish community. The tomb of the 19th-century tzaddik or holy man Reb Horovitz is a place of pilgrimage for hassidic Jews. To the north, Lezajsk is also on many group tours for its large Bernardine church and monastery and the famous beer brewery. During the war, the grave of Reb Elimelech, one of the founding giants of hassidism, was the only Jewish grave left intact in Lezajsk, and it's also visited by Jews from many countries (a 1976 tourist map published by the Polish government marks Pelkinie forest as a site of martyrdom, but it's not clear if there is an actual memorial there).

Tourists in cars and sometimes buses drive through Zolynia on their way from Lancut to Lezajsk, but Zolynia is one of a handful of Podkarpackie towns not mentioned in any published promotional materials.

Since 1991, twenty-three partial headstones from the old Jewish cemetery have stood in two rows on a little-used path off the main road, surrounded by a locked gate. Restored with funds from Mr. Jozef Waldman, a resident of Germany who passed away in 2003, this cemetery area has been occassionally visited by Jews from abroad descended from Zoliners (see the "Image" section for full photo documentation of this cemetery). Owned by the municipality but maintained with funds from Mr. Waldman, the property is just under a sixth of an acre in size (7,100 square feet or 660 square meters), though the original cemetery was larger.

At the head of the two rows of mainly broken stones is a monument erected by Mr. Waldman whose mother, Sabinie Waldmann, was one of the last people to be buried in the original cemetery in November 1939. The inscription, in Polish, dedicates the monument to her eternal memory and to "all buried here."