Established in the 14th c, the town of Dukla gained in importance in mid-16th c., when a customs house on the route to Hungary was set up here. In 1588, King Sigismund III Vasa granted the town the right of wine storage, and from 1595 it was in Dukla that the customs on all the goods carried across the border had to be collected. The merchandise brought from the land on the Danube was mainly wine, but also beer, horses, dried fruit, cheeses, and iron. The goods carried in the opposite direction included cloth, yarn, hide, herrings, and honey. Hungarian wine trade was the main occupation of the first Jews who settled in Dukla at the turn of the 16th and 17th c. In 1676, 23 Jewish families lived here already. The Jewish community of Dukla was organizationally subordinated to the qahal in the nearby town of Nowy Żmigród. Information about an independent Jewish community (gmina) dates back to 1742.
A mention of Chaim, a rabbinic official from Dukla, can be found in the memoirs of Rabbi Dov Ber of Bolechów (Bolekhiv). In mid-18th c., Chaim was arrested in the Hugarian city of Miskolc after he had bought a large amount of wine for false coins. After a one-year investigation, it turned out that the coins came from the treasury of the Observants’ monastery in Dukla, where they had been contributed as alms from the nobility.
In the 1st half of the 17th c., Dukla became the seat of the noble family of Mniszech. The Mniszechs’ palace in Dukla, dating back to the 16th c., was rebuilt in 1764–1765 in late baroque style by Jerzy August Mniszech and his wife Maria. The aristocratic residence was decorated with a collection of works by famous painters, such as Rubens or Baciarelli. The palace was rebuilt after the destruction of World War II, and today it is home to the Historical Museum.
Traces of Dukla’s Jews
In 1758, a fire consumed the old wooden synagogue. An impressive new one of brick and stone was built in its place. The rectangular main hall measured 12 by 16 metres; on the west and north sides, the building was adjoined by extensions housing a porch, a library, and a prayer room for women. The synagogue was devastated by the Germans during World War II. What survives to this day is the walls of the prayer room with a stone portal and an alcove where there used to be the Aron Kodesh (Torah Ark). In some places it is still possible to discern traces of inscriptions with texts of Hebrew prayers.
Near the synagogue there also survives the building of a Beit Hamidrash (8 Cergowska St.), erected in 1884, after another fire of the town, on the initiative of Rabbi Tzvi Leitner. That fire, one of many that affected the town, destroyed not only the old Beit Hamidrash but also 104 houses of Jewish burghers and 6 houses of Christian burghers. A prayer house functioned in this building until 1940, when it was burnt down, and after the war it was converted and served as a storehouse for artificial fertilizers. At present, it houses a shop. Across the road, in the former mikveh (12 Cergowska St.), there is an emergency ambulance service, fire brigade, and voluntary mountain rescue service (GOPR) station. Another interesting memento of Dukla’s Jewish community is the building of the municipal nursery school (11 Kościuszki St.), founded by baron Maurycy Hirsch in 1895 as a four-grade Jewish primary school for boys.
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