The following information was taken from an episode of "Finding Your Roots" which aired on PBS TV in November 2014 hosted by Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. This episode was devoted to finding the roots of three Jewish guests whose families emigrated from Galicia.

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In the 1800's Galicia, then in Poland was an agricultural center for the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  In 1898 after a series of crop failures Galicia was thrown into an economic crisis. Jewish merchants and bankers homes were looted and destroyed by their non-Jewish neighbors. Violence spread across the region. The violence was called "The Plunder".

 

From 1900 thru 1910 nearly 110,000 Jews fled persecution throughout the Austrian Hungarian Empire, the vast majority coming from the Galicia region and migrated to America.

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It was against Jewish law to travel on the Sabbath and had the Rabbis not changed that law many families could not have come to America because it took more than 7 days to travel by sea to America.

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In 1939 the Germans occupied Poland. In 1945 the Germans surrendered. Six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.  Over half of these Jewish families came from Poland. Many of the historical records were destroyed during this period however, information found for this episode was discovered through Yizkor books.

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Yizkor books were written after the Holocaust as memorials to Jewish communities destroyed. They were usually put together by survivors from those communities and give important background information about the history and Jewish life in a particular community.