Kiwerce

Jews were allowed to settle in Kiwerce in the late 19th century. In 1910 about 500 Jews were living in the town. Kiwerce suffered during World War I in the battles of 1915 between Austrian and Russian troops. During the Polish-Soviet war (1919-1921) the Jews of the town suffered from the Polish army under the command of General Haller. After the war, as a part of the Volhyn Region, Kiwerce became part of the Polish state. In 1921 the Jewish population of the town declined to 175, out of the total population of 552. In the interwar period the number of Jews grew slightly, but many Jews left the town. The Zionist movement was active in Kiwerce, where it established a He-Halutz training commune. In September 1939, following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Kiwerce became part of the Soviet Ukraine. It is estimated that by mid-1941 the Jewish population was about 400, including a number of Jewish refugees who arrived in the fall of 1939 from the western and central parts of Poland that had been occupied by the Nazis. Germans troops entered Kiwerce on July 2, 1941. According to one testimony, on the first day of the occupation the Germans shot to death a number of Jews and Poles who had held key positions in the local administration under the Soviets. During the summer of 1941 the Germans established a Judenrat (Jewish council) headed by Jukelshon and Lesznar. The Jews were required to wear armbands bearing the Star of David on their sleeves (this was replaced in September by a yellow patch on their clothes). They were forbidden to trade with or have other contacts with the local population. They were also required to turn over all of their valuables to the German authorities and to perform various kinds of forced labor. During this period many residents of the town fled to the nearby Jewish rural settlement of Zofijowka. Apparently at the end of 1941 or at the beginning of 1942, an open ghetto was set up that included a number of wooden barracks near the town's sawmills. Several Jewish physicians with their families were allowed to live outside the ghetto. In May 1942, 270 Jews, mainly women and children, were shot to death by the SS and Gendarmerie units in the Tsuman Forest outside the town. The Jewish physicians were excluded from this murder operation. Over the following months the German authorities shot most of the Jewish physicians and their families, although a few managed to escape. Kiwerce was liberated by the Red Army on February 1, 1944.