Bazaliya

Jews settled in Bazaliyain the late 17th century. One of the first Jewish printing presses in Volhynia was established there. In 1897 the Jewish population stood at 820, and comprised almost 25 percent of the total population. In June 1919 300 Jews were killed during a pogrom in the town. Under Soviet rule a Yiddish school operated in the town until the mid-1930s. In 1939 the Jewish population of 410 comprised nearly 15 percent of the total. On July 6, 1941 the Germans occupied Bazaliya, which became part of the Antoniny administrative district (Gebiet). Sometime afterwards a ghetto was set up in the town. Its inmates suffered from abuse, disease, hunger, and forced labor. According to one account, in the spring of 1942 a visit of high-ranking Nazi officials was planned to the town. Shtundiuk, the elder of Bazaliya, ordered the Jews to take tombstones from the Jewish cemetery to construct a sidewalk. Those unable to carry the heavy tombstones were shot to death on the spot. The remaining Jews of Bazaliya were murdered in July 1942 outside the town, in the forest near the village of Manyevtsy, along with Jews from Antoniny, Krasilov, Kulchiny and other nearby towns. Bazaliya was liberated by the Red Army on March 4 or 5, 1944.