Wichtiger Hinweis
Browary - History and stories
Stand: 28.05.2024
The search for a solidarity partnership in times of war has led the cities of Erlangen and Jena to Browary near Kiev.
The experience of the present could not be more different for the two places: While the people in Erlangen are only indirectly affected by the war in Ukraine, for example through increased gas prices or the arrival of refugees, the people in Browary are still struggling with the shelling of critical infrastructure by the Russian attackers. There are regular power cuts, and staff at the Browary local history museum were also unable to answer questions.
The following text is therefore only preliminary and is based on the information I was able to gather in Germany, also with the help of my colleague Vadym Zolotaryov, who fled Kharkiv, and my colleague Maria Parkhomenko, who also fled Kharkiv. The focus of the text is on the violent history of the 20th century, which goes hand in hand with a special responsibility to remember.
PD Dr. Moritz Florin
Department of History
Chair of Modern and Contemporary History with a focus on the history of Eastern Europe
Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg
Browary - there is a lot to tell
Today, Browary is a small city in the catchment area of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. Throughout its history, the town has been characterized by contact and exchange with its large neighbor, and this has remained the case to this day. While the foundation of Kiev can be traced back to the early Middle Ages, the first documentary mention of Browary dates back to 1628. At that time, farmers and Cossacks settled there, and the town had a total of around 100 houses and 700 inhabitants. The farmers hunted and farmed, while the wealthier Cossacks grew wine and brewed beer.
The name Browary is of Middle High German origin and probably entered the Ukrainian language via Polish, meaning "brewer" or "breweries". The brewing tradition is one of the connecting elements between Erlangen, Jena and Browary, even if this tradition has come to a standstill in Browary itself.
The region as a whole, including its large neighbor Kiev, was under Polish-Lithuanian sovereignty. As early as the mid-17th century, however, Cossacks expelled the so-called "magnates", or nobles and landowners. This marked the beginning of a period of Cossack rule, which today is also regarded as the first phase of Ukrainian independence. The Cossacks strove for freedom from Polish rule; they elected their ruler, the hetman, themselves. However, in their fight for independence from the Catholic Poles, the Cossacks were also dependent on support. As early as 1654, they therefore swore an oath of allegiance to the Russian Orthodox tsar in Pereyaslav. This also brought the town of Browary under the influence of Moscow and later Saint Petersburg.
In the course of the 18th century, large parts of the Ukrainian territories, including Kiev and Browary, were administratively incorporated into the Russian Empire. Browary was also increasingly subject to Russian laws, with serfdom being introduced under Catherine II and abolished again in 1861 during the reform era under Alexander II.
The town experienced modest population growth over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries; around 1900, the approximately 4,300 inhabitants lived mainly from agriculture, crafts and breweries. There were also two Orthodox churches in the village. Trade was of great economic importance, as Browary was located on one of the most important trade routes from east to west. A new post office was built in the town in 1817, which already had 45 horses in service in 1851.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the town became increasingly connected to its large neighbor, first in 1868 with its own railroad station and in 1913 with the opening of a gasoline-powered streetcar that ran between Kiev and Browary.
There was a Jewish community in Browary that was closely connected to the Jews of Kiev. According to the 1897 census, 888 Jews lived in Browary, which corresponded to 22% of the total population. Most of them were small traders or craftsmen, and a Jewish synagogue was established in the 19th century. Like all other people of the Jewish faith, the Jews of Browary suffered from the discriminatory policies of the imperial state; for example, they were only allowed to settle in certain regions of the Tsarist Empire. At times, they were forbidden to settle in Kiev, which was one of the reasons why the communities in suburbs such as Browary grew. The Jews of Browary were also affected by pogrom violence, first in 1648-1649 during the Cossack uprising under Bohdan Chmelnyckyj, and later in the Russian Empire in 1881.
However, it was mainly during the 20th century that the inhabitants of Browary suffered a series of disasters and mass crimes. The first phase of disasters began with the First World War and continued into the period of the Russian Revolution and the Civil War in the years 1917-1922. In neighboring Kiev, power changed hands between different armies 14 times during this period. Among those involved in the fighting were Ukrainian socialists and the Ukrainian national movement, the red and white armies and also German, Austrian and Polish troops.
In 1918, the region became part of a kind of protectorate under German and Austrian sovereignty for a few months, and a German garrison was also stationed in Browary. After the withdrawal of the German troops, fierce fighting broke out. Town dwellers and Jews were affected by looting and violence, while the rural population suffered from the fact that the passing troops helped themselves to the farmers.
At the end of the civil war, the communists (also known as Bolsheviks) prevailed and Browary, like much of the rest of Ukraine, became part of the Soviet Union. The 1920s and 1930s were initially characterized by a certain degree of consolidation and later by a new beginning under Soviet auspices. The central Kiev airport was built in Browary and the city as a whole was increasingly linked to neighboring Kiev. With Stalin's rise to autocracy, however, the second tragedy of the 20th century took its course at the same time: the great famine of 1932/33 gripped Browary. Traditionally, the farmers in the region hardly suffered from hunger due to diversified agriculture, but at the beginning of the 1930s the state forced the farmers into collective farms and at the same time took away their grain. There are eyewitness reports from Browary that almost all residents suffered from hunger, including children. Exact casualty figures for Browary itself are not available.
However, census data shows that almost four million people starved to death in the whole of Ukraine. There is also talk of the "Holodomor" catastrophe, a term made up of the Ukrainian words "holod" for hunger and "mor" for death.
The Stalinist violence went hand in hand with the fight against an independent religious and national consciousness. As part of this policy, the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul and the Church of the Holy Trinity were destroyed in Browary in 1937. Shootings and purges took place in the context of the Great Terror, and alleged opponents of the regime were shot in the Bykiwnja forest, not far from the town. Stalinism sought to stifle any form of resistance; the state and its activists suspected enemies everywhere that needed to be eliminated.
Some historians also argue that the violence was a form of genocide against the Ukrainian people. In November 2022, the German Bundestag adopted this view on the basis of an expert report, meaning that the Stalinist mass violence in Ukraine is also officially considered genocide in Germany. However, this classification remains controversial among academics.
The third catastrophe of the 20th century was the Second World War and the German occupation, which also had a massive impact on Browary. In September 1941, the Browary airport was completely destroyed. In 1941, the German occupiers also set up a labor camp in Browary; the inmates were prisoners of war and the inhabitants of Ukrainian villages.
The background to this was the so-called partisan struggle, in which the German occupiers razed entire villages to the ground. The survivors were then sent to penal camps, and some of them were also sent to Germany as forced laborers. In the fall of 1941, all Jewish prisoners of war were taken to the outskirts of the city and shot there. However, the remaining non-Jewish camp inmates were also treated brutally. There is a mass grave on the former camp grounds, and in 2011 a cross was erected there in memory of those murdered by the Germans.
The fate of the Jewish community of Browary is particularly unbearable. At the beginning of the Second World War, 485 Jews lived in Browary. Some of them were able to flee from the Germans. However, in the fall of 1941, the remaining Jewish inhabitants of the village were called upon to report to Kiev. All those who complied were shot together with the Jews of Kiev by the German occupiers in the Babyn Yar ravine. In total, almost 34,000 Jewish people, including women and children, lost their lives there within two days. Only those Jewish inhabitants of Browary who were able to flee from the German occupiers or who fought on the side of the Red Army against the National Socialists were able to save themselves.
The Second World War as a whole had a catastrophic impact on the town of Browary. During the fighting between German and Soviet troops, the town was razed to the ground. According to local historians, only 138 of 2174 houses survived. Tens of thousands of people left the town or were murdered. Some of the male inhabitants fought on the side of the Red Army against the Germans; it would be necessary to find out to what extent veterans of the Second World War still live in Browary.
During the occupation, every single resident had to make difficult decisions in order to survive. When we talk about "collaboration", "resistance" or participation in mass crimes by one side or the other in our remembrance work, we must always bear in mind the hopeless situation in which people found themselves as a result of the occupation.
A sub-chapter of this period of tyranny deals with the connections that linked Browary and Erlangen for the first time. During the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of people from Eastern Europe and Ukraine were deported to Germany as forced laborers. Research in the Erlangen city archives shows that a total of 36 people from the Browary region came to Erlangen during the war years (Stadtarchiv Erlangen, 300.Z.A.17).
Research is needed into what jobs they did and what fate befell them in the post-war period. The fates of these people and their descendants could play a central role in the joint commemorative work of the cities of Browary and Erlangen in the future. Until now, they have mostly been listed as "Soviet" or "Russian" forced laborers in Erlangen's memorial work, although they came from Ukraine.
The history of the city after 1945 was then under Soviet auspices: No reconstruction took place after 1945, instead an almost entirely new town was planned. Today, Browary is characterized by buildings from the Soviet era. At the beginning of the 1970s, a building boom began, parks were laid out and a sports school was created. This still serves as a kind of training ground for Ukrainian sport today.
World boxing champions Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko also attended this school. The construction of a new hospital with 2,400 beds was completed in 1970. The buildings from the Soviet era dominate the cityscape, with hardly any of the old buildings remaining. The churches that can be found in the town today were completely rebuilt in the 1990s and 2000s. There is also a small Jewish community in Browary again, but the synagogue has not been rebuilt.
The history of violence and war has recently returned to the town. A town that has already been marked by war and tyranny several times was attacked again and briefly shelled with artillery in March 2022. Shootings are said to have taken place in the surrounding villages. At the beginning of April 2022, however, the Ukrainian side succeeded in pushing back the Russian aggressor. Most recently, at the turn of the year 2022/23, the region's infrastructure came under fire and Browary was also affected by massive power cuts. The war is not over yet.
The history of violence is also important with regard to the partnership with Browary, as it goes hand in hand with a special German responsibility to remember. Both Stalinism and the German occupation hit Browary, as well as Ukraine as a whole, hard.
Even though the goals of the two regimes, National Socialism and Stalinism, were fundamentally different, they were similar from the perspective of the victims, for whom this period was above all a phase of violence that came upon them from outside.
Most recently, the crimes of the Stalin era, including the Holodomor, have received a great deal of public attention, especially in view of Russian aggression. However, it should not be forgotten how great Germany's historical responsibility towards the whole of Eastern Europe, Ukraine and a place like Browary remains.
Aust, Martin: Responsibility to remember. Germany's War of Annihilation and Occupation Rule in Eastern Europe, 1939-1945, Bonn 2021.
Barbon, M.: Notatky pro Brovars'ku starovynu, in: Антологія Броварі: Українська ідея, 2005, pp. 380-388.
Brovary, in: https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/untold-stories/community/14622097-Brovary [2.1.2023]
Brovary, Ukrainian Wikipedia (https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Бровари).
Davies, Franziska/Katja Makhotina: Open Wounds of Eastern Europe. Journeys to the Places of Remembrance of the Second World War, Darmstadt 2022.
Murder Story of Brovary Jews in the Brovary Forest, in: https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/untold-stories/killing-site/14627087-Brovary-Forest [2.1.2023]
Nacional'na knyga pam'jati žertv Golodomoru 1932 - 1933 rokiv v Ukraїni, Kyїvs'ka oblast', Kyїv 2008, pp. 184-185.
Plokhy, Serhii: The gateway to Europe. The History of Ukraine, Hamburg 2022.
Rubenstein, Joshua/Ilya Altman: The Unknown Black Book. The Holocaust in the German-Occupied Soviet Territories, Bloomington 2010.
Snyder, Timothy: Blodlands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin, Munich 2022.
Andreas Kappeler: Geschichte der Ukraine, Bonn 2022 (special edition for the Federal Agency for Civic Education).
Gwendolyn Sasse: The war against Ukraine. Backgrounds, events, consequences, Munich 2022.
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