When people see the Yiddish word “shtetl” (a small town in Eastern Europe), it likely conjures scenes from Fiddler On The Roof and thoughts of Ashkenazi Jews living in the Pale of Settlement under the Russian Empire of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
However, as the documentary SHTETLERS illustrates, not only did shtetls continue after World War II and the Holocaust, the Jewish people in Ukraine and Moldova kept the old customs and traditions going for decades, until the fall of the former Soviet Union in the early 90s. Though the Jewish population is gone – mostly resettling in Israel and the U.S. – the years there are fondly remembered by both the non-Jewish people who remain and the émigrés.
SHTETLERS, directed by Katya Ustinova (her first full-length documentary), features animation and historical footage, but its heart lies in the individuals Ustinova’s camera follows across multiple countries. The nine people in the film had cherished lives in these towns, which left a lasting and profound imprint on them all.
The movie opens on 70-something Volodya in Shargorod (in Central Ukraine) as he recalls who lived where: the pediatrician, tailor, hairdresser, all Jews. Though Christian Orthodox, Volodya was “adopted” as a boy by “Uncle Lenya,” one of the Jewish hat makers, who taught him the trade he still practices. The Jews and Christians lived among each other (his wife Nadya learned to cook from “Grandma Ita,” the Jewish woman next door) and the Jewish residents thought of him as one of their own because he was a craftsman like them.
Volodya and Nadya moved into an abandoned property, never taking down the mezuzah, which he touches every time he enters the room. He volunteers to look after the Jewish gravestones and cemetery so they don’t become overrun with weeds and grass. In their free moments, they get out treasured photos (some from the past and others from their new lives in Israel) of their “beloved” former neighbors whom Volodya clearly misses terribly.
“It was like in a fairly tale,” he remarks of the happy times spent among his Jewish friends. When they left, “it all ended.” I wanted to put the two of them on a plane so they could be reunited with everyone.
New York became a refuge for many like Emilia (born in Khmelnik) and Isaac (from Starokonstantinov, not far from the Polish border in Ukraine). A singer and musician, she had attended a Jewish school as a girl, speaking Yiddish and Russian at home. The school had an orchestra: everyone in it killed during World War II. Emilia and her infant son escaped the Germans and the authorities, who knew she was Jewish, thanks to the kindness of neighbors, falsified papers and her blonde hair and blue eyes. During filming, she was still performing for the Jewish Ukrainian groups in New York and celebrated her 99th birthday.
Isaac, who lives in Brighton Beach, a Russian and Ukrainian enclave in Brooklyn, had been in the Soviet Army during the War, and his father and brother fought at the Front. He returned home after and practiced law. In Brooklyn, when not visiting the beach and boardwalk, he paints the Jews of the village he grew up in. “They were beautiful, the old Jews who lived in these shtetls. I still remember them. That’s why I draw them.”
Ustinova shows great skill in who she chose to include in SHTETLERS. Through their memories, she’s crafted a fascinating, heartbreaking and joyful portrait of an unknown chapter of Jewish history. Slava, who travels back to Moldova to “my shtetl, Tirgul Vertiujeni,” wistfully walks through his old neighborhood and visits his empty house, lovingly picking up a cap forgotten by his father. He’s delighted to find a few townspeople who still remember him and his parents. He blissfully eats the cake that one of them has made, exactly the same as his mother once did.
Vladimir, who converted to Judaism, and lives in the West Bank with his equally devout, large, extended family, grew up in a home frequented by Jews because his mother had baked challah and cooked Kosher food for them. His family later hid Jews during the War and his mother was honoured by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among Nations. He is completely at home as he stops to literally smell the flowers and speaks of Israel as a paradise.
That these shtetls survived into the second half of the 20th century is no minor miracle. The Holocaust claimed the lives of 2,700,000 Jews from the occupied Soviet Union; and then, those who came back lived under successive repressive and antisemitic Communist governments. More recent events have made preservation ever more precarious. Filmed before 2020, that distinctive culture which is the focus of SHTETLERS is in great danger of slipping away completely in the wake of Covid-19, the Russian war against Ukraine, devastation in Israel since 2023, and, simply, the passage of time. Emilia passed away just shy of turning 100.
One of the final scenes – of Volodya and Nadya at home after Easter services eating eggs and matzo, the Passover cracker – offers hopefulness about the future. Of the mezuzah, Volodya says, “God’s words are here. Jesus and Mary were Jews. It’s the same God.” He says a prayer for “peace, health, and prosperity to everyone.”
In Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish with English Subtitles; 80 minutes.
SHTETLERS is available on Apple TV, Amazon, Film Movement Plus, Kanopy, Hoopla and Fandango at Home.
Thank you for telling me and us about this important film.
Your review made it a definite must see for me.
Jane Warshaw