Korzec

The first Jews settled in Korzec in the 16th Century. The community suffered greatly during the uprising of Bogdan Chmielnitsky in the 17th Century, but gradually recovered afterward. Prominent Hasidim such as Dov Ber (the Maggid of Miedzyrzecz) and Pinhas Shapiro of Korzec lived in the town for a time. By the end of the 18th Century, two Hebrew printing houses operated in Korzec; one of them published the first Hasidic book, Toldot Yaakov Yosef. In 1897, under Russian Czarist rule, the town was home to 4,608 Jews, who made up 76 percent of the total population. Local Jews operated tanneries and sugar factories, and were involved in the grain and lumber trade. After World War I, Korzec was incorporated into the independent Polish Republic. In 1921, Jews made up 78 percent of the town's 4,946 residents. Jews maintained their numerical superiority in Korzec throughout the interwar period. Most of them were merchants and artisans, while a few exported agricultural produce and worked in small factories. During the 1920s and 1930s, various political organizations (the Bund and the Zionist parties) and youth movements (e.g., Gordonia, Beitar, and Hashomer Hatsair) were active in Korzec. The town was home to a training group of HeHalutz Hatzair, a Tarbut Hebrew-language school, and a Tsisho Yiddish-language school. From 1920, the Zwihil (Novohrad-Volynskyi) Yeshiva – which was headed by Rabbi Ioel Shurin, and ordained rabbis – was active in Korzec, as well. In September 1939, in the aftermath of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Red Army entered Korzec, and the town became part of Soviet Ukraine. The new authorities eliminated private enterprise and established Soviet cooperatives. They also banned the Jewish institutions and political parties. The Tarbut and Tsisho schools were transformed into Soviet educational establishments, with Yiddish as the new language of instruction. Some wealthy Jews were deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities. In the period following the outbreak of war in September 1939, some Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied western Poland settled in the town. It is estimated that some 1,000 of the Jews of Korzec were able to flee eastward shortly before the beginning of the Soviet-German War and during first days of the war. German troops occupied Korzec on July 8, 1941, following a heavy bombardment. Immediately afterward, local Ukrainian nationalists staged a pogrom in Korzec, killing a number of Jews, ransacking and burning down several synagogues (including the Great Synagogue), burning Torah scrolls, and robbing Jewish homes. In the summer and fall of 1941, the Germans introduced several anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear white armbands with blue Stars of David (which were replaced with two yellow badges in September); their residences were marked with blue Stars of David; Jews were allotted two hours a day to buy food, and they were subjected to a nighttime curfew. A Judenrat (Jewish council) of five men and a Jewish Order Service were set up Despite some discrepancies in the testimonies, we know of two anti-Jewish murder operations that were carried out in the town in summer 1941. In the first of these, on August 8, the Germans shot some 120 Jewish men, many of them intellectuals and other notables, 10 kilometers northeast of Korzec, in a forest near the village of Sukhovolya (in the Zhitomir County). During the second murder operation, on August 20, some 350 Jewish men, including three members of the Judenrat, were shot 2 kilometers outside the town, near the village of Szytnia. The Jews of Korzec suffered from a severe food shortage, as bread was distributed only to Ukrainians. In the winter of 1941-1942, Jews had to perform forced labor, including building shacks, digging underground tunnels, and excavating deep trenches. Many men were rounded up and sent to work in forced labor camps. On May 21, 1942, some 2,500 Jews were shot by German units in the Kozak Forest, 7 kilometers north of Korzec. Following this murder operation, the German authorities set up a ghetto on Synagogue Street. It housed approximately 1,500 inmates, including the 200 workers who had been temporarily spared, Jews who had been hiding, and some women and children brought in from nearby villages. The Jews were forbidden to leave the ghetto. On September 24 or 25, 1942, the ghetto was liquidated, and its inmates were shot by German units in the Kozak Forest. At that time, a group of men led by Moshe Gildenman, who had staged an uprising in the ghetto, escaped into the forests and engaged in partisan activities against the Germans. As a partisan, Gildenman became known under the alias "Uncle (Dyadya) Misha". According to several ChGK testimonies, a few small groups of Jews, who had apparently tried to hide, were subsequently shot at the town's Jewish cemetery, along with some Roma families. Korzec was liberated by the Red Army on January 13, 1944.