Torczyn

The founding of the Jewish community in Torczyn dates to the 16th century. During the 1648 uprising of Bogdan Chmelnitsky the Jews suffered greatly. Under the rule of the Russian Empire (after the second and third partitions of Poland in 1793 and 1795) the number of Jews grew, reaching 2,629 (out of a total of 4,507) in 1897. During World War I, under Austrian occupation (1915-1916), the Jewish men of Torczyn were made to perform forced labor outside the town. After the war, as a part of the Volyn Region, Torczyn was incorporated into the Polish state. The Jews of the town worked in building and the production of clothes and food, as well as petty trade. The town's Jewish children had a choice of schools - a Tarbut Zionist Hebrew-language primary school that operated from the mid-1920s, traditional primary schools (hadorim), and a Talmud Torah. During the 1920s and the 1930s various political organizations (the Bund, various Zionist parties) and youth movements (especially the Beitar Zionist movement) were active in the town. In September 1939, following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Torczyn became part of Soviet Ukraine. The Soviets shut down private enterprises, exiling some businessmen to Siberia and other parts of the Soviet Union. The Tarbut school was transformed into a Yiddish-language Soviet school. It is estimated that on the eve of the war between the Soviet Union and Germany approximately 1,700 Jew were living in the town. The Germans captured Torczyn on June 24, 1941. Shortly afterwards the Jews were made to wear on their chests and backs a Star of David (which was replaced in September by a yellow patch) and to perform forced labor. Shortly after the German occupation began the Germans set up a Judenrat (Jewish council), headed by Leizer Karsh, and a Jewish police force to assist the Judenrat. On August 2, 1941 about 300 Jewish men (and several young women) accused of being Communists or of collaborating with the Soviet authorities were murdered by the Germans in the forest outside the town. In January 1942 the Jews were ordered to pay a "tax" of gold, clothing, and other items. In February 1942 a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire was established in the old part of the town. Some Jews were sent by the Judenrat to perform forced labor outside the ghetto. In May 1942 approximately 150 Jewish young men were sent to Kiev and, later, further east to build bridges for the TODT organization. Few of them survived. On August 22, 1942, the inmates of the town's ghetto were shot to death (except for several dozen artisans and their families) at the Jewish cemetery outside the town. Shortly afterwards the Jews who had not been killed during this murder operation or were caught in hiding were killed at the same location. Apparently in early December, the remaining artisans and craftsmen were shot to death at the same site. Torczyn was liberated by the Red Army on February 25, 1944.