Radziwillow

Jews are first mentioned in Radziwiłłów at the end of the 16th century. In 1897, under the rule of the Russian Empire, the Jewish population of the town numbered 4,322, comprising roughly 60 percent out of its total population. During World War I, when Russian troops were at the frontline, many Jews fled to the town of Krzemieniec, while others immigrated in the face of the economic duress. After World War I Radziwiłłów was incorporated into the independent Polish State as part of the Volhyn Region. In 1921 the Jewish population was reduced and stood at 2,036 comprising 48 percent of the total population of the town. Between the two world wars, Jews dominated the grain trade. Most made a living from commerce and artisanship; some owned factories, mainly for grain and food processing. During this period, Zionist parties and its youth movements (such as Hashomer Hatzair, Beitar, Gordonia, Dror) were active in the town. The town also had a Hebrew-language Tarbut school that operated a kindergarten, and also a Jewish public library. In 1937 about 3,000 Jews were living in Radziwiłłów, comprising about 50 percent of its total population. After September 17, 1939 with the arrival of the Red Army in the town, following the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Radziwiłłów became part of the Soviet Ukraine. Shortly afterwards the town was renamed as Krasnoarmeysk. The Soviet rule put an end to the communal life. The Jewish organizations and institutions were disbanded and private businesses had been nationalized. Several wealthy families of the town, as well as some Jewish refugees from the German occupied parts of Poland who opted not to take Soviet citizenship, were exiled by the Soviet authorities to Gulag. Germans captured Radziwiłłów on June 27, 1941. In the first days of the German occupation, some local Ukrainians and Germans robbed the Jews. On July 15, 1941 28 Jews were shot to death allegedly as Communist activists by an SS unit outside the town, in the forest near the East Galician border city of Brody. The next day Ukrainian thugs organized the public burning of prayer books and Torah scrolls from the synagogue and forced the rabbi of the town, rabbi Itzchak Lerner to dance around the bonfire. On August 15, the Jewish committee, that had been set up immediately after the German occupation, became a Judenrat (Jewish council). The committee head, Weiderhorn, an assimilated German-speaking Jew from Hungary resigned and Jacob Furman took over as a new chairman of the Judenrat. On August 25 the Jews of the town were ordered to wait in the market square for several hours, during this time their houses were looted of all valuable possessions. In the summer and fall of 1941 the Germans implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures in Radziwiłłów. The Jews were ordered to wear distinctive markings (initially white armbands with a blue Star of David, replaced in December by yellow circles on their chest and backs); they were prohibited from leaving the town without permission, from using the sidewalks, or from trading with the local non-Jews; most items of the Jewish property were confiscated or used to pay "contributions" imposed on the community. At the end of February 1942, a number of Jewish workers were rounded up and sent to a labor camp near Vinnitsa where most of them perished. In March 1942, the Germans, assisted by the town's mayor Anton Matejko, conducted another robbery operation against the Jews, seizing any remaining valuables from Jewish houses. On April 9, 1942 a ghetto was set up in the town, and Jews from the surrounding villages also had to move into it. The ghetto was located in the poorest Jewish houses close to the market square. It was split into two sections divided by Poczajowska Street. Several hundred Jews with work certificates designating them "productive" or "useful" Jews lived in the part of the ghetto named "Karee", and the remaining "unproductive" Jews lived in its other part named "Teich." Both ghetto sections were surrounded with barbered wire and guarded internally by the Jewish Police and externally by the Ukrainian police. Due to extreme overcrowding, disease and hunger were rife in the ghetto. Many Jews performed forced labor tasks every day outside the ghetto, such as working for the Organization Todt (OT) on construction projects such as at the airfield, while others worked at the railroad station or for various German offices. On May 29, 1942 the German units conducted a murder operation against the "unproductive" section of the ghetto outside the town, shooting to death about 1,400 Jews at the Suchodolie murder site. A number of Jews managed to escape and hide on the eve of this murder operation. On June 6, forty youths had been sent to work in the city of Równe, where most of them were murdered. On October 6, 1942 a Security Police unit carried out the liquidation of the Radziwiłłów ghetto (apparently including also a cooperative of tailors, that had been set up before the liquidation of the "useless" ghetto), shooting to death its remaining Jews at Suchodolie murder site. Several hundred Jews managed to escape from the ghetto on the night before this murder operation, many of them headed towards the city of Brody, that was part of the Generalgouvernement, where there was still a ghetto at that time. Some others hid with their non-Jewish acquaintances. Many of these runaway Jews were subsequently caught and shot by the Gendarmerie and Ukrainian police. Radziwiłłów (Krasnoarmeysk) was liberated by the Red Army on March 20, 1944.