Luboml

Jews were noted as living in Luboml in the second half of the 14th century. By 1897, under the Russian Empire, the Jewish population had grown to 3,247, which was 73 percent of the total population. During World War I, under the Austrian occupation of 1915-1918, the town's Jews suffered from hunger, disease, and forced labor. After World War I Luboml was incorporated into the independent Polish state. In 1921 the Jewish population of 3,141 comprised 95 percent of the total. In the interwar period Zionist political parties and youth movements (such as Hashomer Hatzair, Beitar, and HeHalutz) were active in Luboml. There was a range of Jewish educational activity, including a lower-level yeshiva, a traditional Talmud Torah, and Hebrew-language schools affiliated with the Tarbut Zionist and the Yavne Orthodox school systems. Jews played a major role in the economic life of the town, such as the food industry and trade, and in agricultural production. Toward the end of 1937 about 3,000 Jews lived in the town. After September 17, 1939, with the arrival of the Red Army following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Luboml became part of Soviet Ukraine. Soviet annexation put an end to all independent political and public life, including of the Jews. The Tarbut and Yavne Hebrew-language schools were compelled to adopt the Soviet Yiddish-language curriculum. The Soviets also banned private trade and industry.

Germans troops captured Luboml on June 25, 1941. Upon their arrival, the Germans set fire to the center of the town, where most of the Jews were living. Shortly afterwards the Jews were required to wear white armbands bearing a blue Star of David (replaced in September by a yellow badge). A curfew was imposed on the Jews and the German authorities demanded that the Jews hand over all their gold objects and other valuables or be killed. During this period a Judenrat (Jewish council), headed by Kalman Kopelzon, was established and a Jewish police force was set up. On July 22 a German unit shot to death several hundred Jewish men near the Jewish cemetery outside the town. Another murder operation was carried out on August 21, 1941 when several hundred Jews, mostly women and elderly people, were shot to death in the Borki Forest outside of town. At the end of the same month the Germans forced some Jewish women to publicly burn scrolls of the Torah. After those two murder operations the German authorities ordered the Jews to hand over all their livestock to the German army. The Germans also constantly demanded "contributions" of gold, leather boots, and currency. In November 1941 the Jews of Luboml were forced to live in a concentrated manner, on several of the town's streets. In December, on the order of Gebietskommissar (regional commissar) Uhde, the Jews were forced into a two-part ghetto: one part was reserved for skilled workers and their families, while the other was designated for the rest of the town's Jews. The Jews in the ghetto were required to pay the "taxes" levied on them and were conscripted for forced labor.

On October 1, 1942 the Germans began the liquidation of the ghetto. According to a Soviet ChGK document 1,700 Jews were shot to death on that day at the former brick factory near Borki village. The murder operation lasted about a week since many Jews initially escaped the murder operation or hid in bunkers and various other prepared hideouts before they were caught. Only a few managed to escape to the forest to join the partisans.

Luboml was liberated by the Red Army on July 19, 1944.