Alex stopped the car so that I could take this photo. It turned out that horse-drawn vehicles are very common in Ukraine.

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One section of the road had a lot of people selling these sort of brooms. They’re used to beat yourself with when you take a sauna.

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Just outside of Kolomyya we stopped in a forested area to see a monument. The Nazis had marched many Jews into the forest around here and shot them, not even bothering to have them dig a pit.

This monument probably commemorates the massacre of the remaining Jews from the Kolomyya ghetto which took place in 1943 near the village of Sheparivtsi (Шепарівці): Les derniers internés du ghetto de Kolomyya (R.S.S. d’Ukraine), soit 1 500 personnes, sont conduits dans une forêt près du village de Szeparovtze pour y être assassinés. Kolomyya est déclaré « purifiée de ses juifs ». Sur les 15 000 juifs que comptait la ville, 25 seulement survivent à l’ère nazie. (ref)

We felt especially welcomed to Kolomyya.

Alex drove into the heart of town and parked next to a synagogue. It was Saturday and we were able to enter and visit.

This man had children in Brooklyn.

It was a short walk to the central square.

This corner of the square was in entrance to a large and colorful market. The women holding bottles of milk are trying to sell them. There were a lot of people selling just a few items from their gardens and farms.

We emerged from the marked onto a wide, sunny street with many people in a hurry. We were impressed throughout our visit to Ukraine at the speed that people walked. In Lviv it was common to see young people break into a run just to get where they were going faster. Even the bent-over old woman walking in front of the Easter Egg museum was in a hurry.

We turned right onto a narrower side street. Alex told us that one wall of the Kolomyya ghetto had been built down one side of this street. In other words, the people commemorated in the monument that we saw coming into Kolomyya had lived here. The street is now sunny and pleasant.

Alex took us next a bit away from the center to a Jewish cemetery. This cemetery had a sentry who came over to check us out. Apparently there had been some vandalism elsewhere - I forget the details - that caused them to go on alert here.

Headstones that couldn’t be matched to specific graves were sometimes set into walls or walkway.

Before leaving Kolomyya we had a pleasant lunch.

Lviv to Ivano Frankivsk (2016-04-15) < Trip Overview > Kolomyya to Yaremche (2016-04-16)