Volodarsk Volynskiy

The earliest reference to the presence of Jews in Volodarsk Volynskiy (known as Goroshki at the time) dates to 1765, when it was home to eleven Jews. By 1897, the local Jewish community had grown significantly, numbering 2,018 people (or 62.5 percent of the total population of the town). By the 1910s, Jews were prominent in the local commerce. Most of the town's shops, industrial enterprises, and other businesses were owned by Jews. In 1907–1917, the Jewish women's charity committee was active in the town, providing medical and financial assistance. In 1905, the Zionists established a "Reformed Cheder," where sixty pupils studied Hebrew and Russian. Several Zionist groups, including Hovevei Zion, were active in Goroshki, as was the Bund. In 1912, the town was renamed Kutuzovo; later, in 1923, it was renamed Volodarsk. In 1920, it was the scene of a pogrom that claimed the lives of six Jews. In 1926, 2,068 Jews lived in Volodarsk, making up half of the local population. Most of them were either artisans or petty traders. In 1927, the town was renamed Volodarsk Volynskiy. Until 1936, it had a seven-year Yiddish school.

Volodarsk Volynskiy was occupied by the Wehrmacht on July 12, 1941. By that time, numerous Jewish refugees had arrived in the town, hoping to be evacuated into the Soviet interior. Under the German occupation, the Jews performed various kinds of forced labor. The first murder operation against the local Jews seems to have been carried out in late July – early August 1941. According to certain testimonies, sometime around August 20, 1941, a German officer warned the Jewish population that his men would leave the town soon and that, a short while later, a punitive squad would arrive to exterminate them. He suggested that the Jews contact the Red Army unit that remained in the nearby village of Krapivino, and ask them for rescue, since there were few policemen in the town. The Red Army unit entered Volodarsk Volynskiy for less than an hour. Under the protection of the Soviet soldiers, most of the local Jews left the town for Korosten. They were then evacuated, and survived. Those Jews who had stayed behind in Volodarsk Volynskiy were shot in September 1941. In the summer of 1942, several hundred male Romanian Jewish laborers from Klausenburg (which was then part of Hungary; present-day Cluj-Napoca, Romania) were sent to the Eastern Front, and most of them died there. Apparently, at least some of these Jews arrived in the area of the Novaya Borovaya village in the Volodarsk Volynsk County. There, they lived in barracks and performed forced labor at the Zhitomir-Korosten railway line. Most of them died from disease and the harsh living conditions, and the survivors were shot in the spring of 1943.

The town was liberated on January 1, 1944.

In 2016, it was renamed Khoroshev.