Mizocz

Jews settled in Mizocz in the 18th century. In 1897, while under the rule of the Russian Empire, the Jews numbered 1,175 and comprised 44 percent of the total population. Light industry developed in the late 19th century, with Jews operating factories for the production of felt, oil, and sugar as well, as sawmills and a flour mill. After World War I Mizocz was incorporated into the independent Polish State. In 1921, Mirocz's 845 Jews comprised about two-thirds of the town's population. Between the World Wars the Jews of the town were artisans and merchants, particularly of agricultural produce. There was a Jewish owned sugar factory. Mizocz's community had a "Tarbut" Zionist-oriented Hebrew-language network of educational institutions, including a kindergarten. There were also Polish, Yiddish, and Hebrew public libraries. Branches of Zionist parties and youth movements (such as Gordonia, Beitar, and Hashomer Hatzair) were also active in Mizocz. After September 17, 1939, with the arrival of the Red Army, following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Mizocz became part of Soviet Ukraine. By June 1941 the town's Jewish population had increased to more than 2,000, including a number of refugees from the German-occupied part of Poland. Many of the newcomers, however, were deported to the Soviet interior. On June 22, 1941 when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, some 300 members of the Mizocz Jewish community succeeded in heading eastward, either as Red Army recruits or as evacuees and fugitives. The Germans captured the town on June 27, 1941. Two days later the Ukrainians carried out a week-long pogrom, that included the killing of several local Jews. Almost immediately after their entry, the Germans started enforcing a curfew and Jews were ordered to wear white armbands with a blue Star of David (replaced later by yellow patches) to be worn on the chest and on the back. Jews had to step off sidewalks when encountering a German and Jewish men had to take off their hats. The Germans established a Ukrainian auxiliary police force headed by a man named Mizoczyk. During the same period, a Judenrat (Jewish council) was established with former mayor Aba Shtivl as its head, as well as a Jewish police force headed by Goldbrener. In the summer and fall of 1941 the Jewish police helped collect money, valuables, and other items demanded by the Germans as "contributions." From the very beginning of the occupation Jews had to perform forced labor, such as washing wounded soldier's laundry, snow removal, farm work, and construction work in the nearby town of Zdołbunów for the German firm Josef Jung from Solingen. Apparently in March 1942. the Gebietskommissar (regional commissar) of the nearby town of Zdołbunów announced that a ghetto would be established in Mizocz. All Jews from the town and the surrounding villages were ordered to move into the ghetto, located in the old part of the town; the actual transfer was probably not completed until June. This was an open ghetto, not surrounded by a wall or other physical barrier and it was not closely guarded. Despite the public hanging of Zeyde Gelman for illegal slaughtering, and several other arrests, the German administration of Mizocz was relatively benign. On the morning of October 14, 1942, after a German murder squad arrived in the town, the organizers of the resistance movement and some other inmates of the ghetto set many houses in the ghetto on fire and attacked the Germans and Ukrainian auxiliary police. The fire helped a large number of people to escape, though about 200 people died in the flames in the ghetto. Some Jews were apparently discovered in hiding places. Later on the same day, most of the remaining Jews of Mizocz (mainly women, children, and the elderly) were shot to death by an SD unit at the ravine near the sugar factory outside the town. The murder operation continued on October 15 since many of those who had escaped from the ghetto were caught and shot to death near the sugar factory. The few survivors took to the forests. Mizocz was liberated by the Red Army on February 6, 1944.