Poczajow Nowy

Jews settled in Poczajów in the second half of the 18th century. In 1897, under the rule of the Russian Empire, the Jewish population numbered 1,377, comprising approximately 70 percent of the town's total population. Local Jews made their living mainly from small trade (renting rooms, selling religious articles, etc.), i.e., in work associated with the local monastery the Ławra Poczajowska. They also engaged in handicrafts and smuggling goods to nearby Austrian Galicia. The local monastery, however, was also a source of anti-Jewish agitation. In September 1915, during World War I, the Jewish residents of the town were deported by the conquering Austrian army. They returned in 1918 and found the town half in ruins. After World War I Poczajów was incorporated into the independent Polish State. In 1921 the Jewish population stood at 1,083 or 46.7 percent of total town's population. In the interwar years the Jews of the town were merchants, dealing in food and textiles, or petty manufacturers. The town had a Hebrew-language Tarbut school (that operated a library), a yeshiva and, for a short time, a Talmud Torah. Zionist organizations, and especially their youth movements (such as "HeHalutz", 'HaShomer HaTzair" and 'Beitar") were active in Poczajów. In September 1939, with the arrival of the Red Army in the town, following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Poczajów became part of Soviet Ukraine. It is estimated that by mid-1941 there were about 1,300 Jews living in Poczajów. After the beginning of Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941 several dozen Jewish men were drafted into the Red Army, while a number of other Jews were able to escape to the east. Apparently over 1,000 Jews came under German occupation when Poczajów was captured on June 30, 1941. The Germans immediately began to confiscate Jewish property and to demand a high ransom from the Jewish residents of the town. On July 8, 1941 120 (or 106) Jewish men were shot to death by a German unit in the forest outside the town, near Belaya Gora. In the same month, ten young Jews accused of being Communists were arrested, and a high ransom was demanded from the Jewish community. However, after the money had been paid, it was discovered that the ten had already been shot to death near the Jewish cemetery and buried at the local animal burial ground. In the summer of 1941 a Judenrat (Jewish council) consisting of 12 members and a Jewish police force were established in the town. Jews were required to wear a distinctive symbol (the Star of David). They were compelled to engage in forced labor, were forbidden to leave the town, and were subjected to systematic robbery and beating by the Ukrainian auxiliary police. In addition, an order was issued to establish -- for the Germans -- a brothel that employed young Jewish girls. However, after the authorities were bribed, the Germans revoked this order. In January 1942 a ghetto, surrounded by a 2-meter-high wooden fence topped by barbed wire, was set up in the town. The ghetto suffered from overcrowding . There was also a severe shortage of water since the well was situated outside the ghetto and the Jews were allowed to pump water only for two hours a day. To prevent Jews from smuggling food into the ghetto, there were Ukrainian guards outside the ghetto and the Jewish police inside. Several hundred Jewish men performed forced labor daily, usually working on road construction or cleaning vacated Jewish houses. Despite strict regulations to the contrary, Jews were able to obtain food from local peasants in exchange for clothing or other items. On one occasion, 40 Jews who were working near the town paid the guard to let them into the town to forage for food. Ukrainian auxiliary policemen caught them and took them to a German official who then selected 19 of the youngest people and ordered the Judenrat to dig a grave in which the victims were subsequently buried alive. After the Germans denied the ghetto further bread rations, the Jews formed a committee that collected money from those who still had some and set up a soup kitchen. Apparently on August 12, (or on September 7) 1942 the ghetto of Póczajow was liquidated when most of its inmates were shot to death by an SD squad several hundred meters from the town center, at an anti-tank trench on Lipovaya Street. During the following days those who managed to hide during this mass murder operation were captured by the Gendarmerie and Ukrainian auxiliary police and shot to death at the Jewish cemetery. Apparently in October, about 30 Jewish craftsmen who had been kept alive for various tasks, such as road constructions, were also shot to death at the Jewish cemetery, after they had finished their assigned work. Poczajów was liberated by the Red Army on March 19, 1944.