Hoszcza

The first Jews seem to have settled in Hoszcza in the second half of the 16th Century. In 1897, under Russian Czarist rule, the town was home to 884 Jews, who made up 42 percent of the total population. During World War I, many Jews left the town. In the subsequent years of revolution, the Russian Civil War, and the Soviet-Polish War, some of the remaining Jews were attacked by Petlyura's army and Polish troops. Finally, Hoszcza was incorporated into the independent Polish Republic. In 1921, the town had 811 Jewish residents, who made up approximately 36 percent of the total population. Local Jews were traders (both petty and large-scale ones), flour mill owners, and artisans. Zionist political parties and youth movements (such as HeHalutz, Gordonia, Beitar, and Hashomer Hatzair) were active in the town, which also had a Hebrew-language Tarbut school and kindergarten. In the first week of September 1939, many Jewish refugees from Równe flocked to Hoszcza. The Red Army entered the town after September 17, 1939, in the aftermath of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and Hoszcza became part of Soviet Ukraine. Private and public property was nationalized. Some wealthy Jews, who were deemed "bourgeois" by the Soviet authorities, were deported to Siberia. By mid-1941, Hoszcza is estimated to have been home to more than 1,000 Jews, including some refugees. On June 29, 1941, the German air force bombed the town, killing 165 Jewish residents and destroying many houses. The Germans occupied Hoszcza on July 4, 1941. In late July, they carried out the first murder operation in the town, shooting 10 prominent local Jews on the outskirts of Hoszcza. In the summer and fall of 1941, the German occupiers introduced a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a distinctive symbol (initially an armband, and then – from September 1941 – a yellow circle on their clothing), and they were forced to perform forced labor, during which they would be beaten and abused. Among other things, Jews had to clean the streets, load trucks, and work on building a bridge over the Horyn River. A Jewish Council (Judenrat) with seven members was established (it was headed by Israel David Utzenik, and his primary assistants were two local businessmen, Joseph Zawodnik and Zalman Zaltzman). According to one account, the Jews were forced to relocate to a particular section of the town shortly after the Germans' arrival; however, this new "Jewish quarter" was not fenced off. On May 20, 1942, some 400 Jews, including women and children, were shot by German units, assisted by the Ukrainian auxiliary police, in a birch grove near the village of Symonovo, outside of town. After the murder operation, the survivors gradually emerged from their hiding places to find that many of their relatives had been killed and their homes looted by local peasants. On September 25, 1942, some 300 Jews were shot by German units, with the assistance of the Ukrainian police, in the Symonovo birch grove. During this murder operation, another 40 Jews were killed inside the town, at David Silverberg's residence, where they had sought refuge. The head of the Judenrat, Israel David Utzenik, was shot together with his family in this murder operation. According to a testimony, some 140 surviving Jews later returned, or were brought back, to Hoszcza, and 123 of these were shot in a further murder operation on November 14, 1942, in the same birch grove near Symonovo. According to the same testimony, 17 Jews managed to escape during this operation. On July 17, 1943, 20 skilled artisans, who had been kept alive by the Germans in a labor camp in the town, were shot near the chalk quarry outside the town. Hoszcza was liberated by the Red Army on January 18, 1944.