Dabrowica

Jews lived in Dąbrowica from the early 16th century. In 1897, under the Russian Empire, the town was home to 2,868 Jews, who made up about 47 percent of the total population. In January 1919, during the Russian Civil War, units of Symon Petliura's Ukrainian army robbed the local Jews and killed several of them. After World War I, Dąbrowica was incorporated into Second Polish Republic. In 1921, Jews comprised 94 percent of the town's 2,694 residents. In the interwar period, the Jews of Dąbrowica made their living from trade, manufacturing, the crafts, and the export of lumber and grain. A number of Jews ran flour mills. A TOZ clinic operated in the community. The town also had a kindergarten, two Zionist Hebrew-language schools affiliated with the Tarbut and Yavneh networks, a Yiddish-language school, a junior-level Yeshiva, and a Talmud Torah. Zionist political parties and their youth movements (such as Hashomer Hatzair, HeHalutz Hatzair, and Beitar) were active in Dąbrowica, as was the Bund. The HeHalutz Zionist youth movement operated a training group in the town. In 1937, Dąbrowica was home to about 3,200 Jews, who made up 43 percent of the total population. After September 17, 1939, in the aftermath of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Red Army occupied the town, and Dąbrowica became part of Soviet Ukraine. Under Soviet rule, Jewish communal institutions were disbanded, and private property was nationalized. On June 28, 1941, shortly after the German invasion of the USSR, some 200 young Jews from Dąbrowica fled into the Soviet interior, along with the functionaries of the Soviet regime. On July 1, 1941, Dąbrowica was occupied by the Germans. Immediately after the arrival of the German forces, local residents carried out a pogrom in the town; many Jews were robbed and assaulted, and a number of people were seriously wounded. Shortly afterward, the Germans established a Jewish Council (Judenrat), which was headed by Avraham Liebersohn. A Jewish police force, headed by Yaacov Perpelmazia, was set up and subordinated to the Judenrat. In the summer and fall of 1941, the Germans implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures in the Dąbrowica County. Jews were ordered to wear distinctive markings (initially, these were armbands with the Star of David; they were later replaced with patches shaped like a yellow circle). They also had to mark their residences with a six-pointed blue star. Jews were forbidden to leave the town boundaries. Both the German authorities and the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police subjected the Jews to systematic confiscations, robberies, and assaults. Jews were required to perform forced labor. The men were assigned heavy manual work (either at sawmills or at the train station, where they loaded and unloaded freight), while the women were sent to the fields for agricultural work. One day in January 1942, when 80 men failed to show up for work, they were arrested, and the German authorities ordered them to be shot. The Judenrat paid a bribe to save their lives, but the arrested men were flogged every night for eight nights, and were still required to work during the days. In April (or March) 1942, the German civil administration established a ghetto in Dąbrowica. On April 29, 1942, Jews from the surrounding villages (including several hundred from Kołki) were forcibly resettled in the Dąbrowica Ghetto. In early May, the Jews of Dąbrowica itself were relocated to the ghetto, swelling its population to 4,327 people. It appears to have been an open ghetto. Between May and August 1942, young men from Dąbrowica attempted to stage an uprising or an escape. The Judenrat, fearing German retribution, was apprehensive about their plans, and even threatened to turn them over to the Germans. On August 26, 1942, the German and Ukrainian police liquidated the Dąbrowica Ghetto. As the Jews were being marched to the railway station to be transported to the town of Sarny, some 1,500 of them fled en masse, but approximately 200 of the fugitives were shot dead in the area of the town. Of those who fled, more than 500 managed to reach the forests, but many others were soon recaptured. Several hundred Jews made it to the ghetto in the town of Wysock, where they were killed together with the local Jews a couple weeks later. Some gravely ill Jews were shot at the Dąbrowica railway station. The remaining Jews of Dąbrowica were transported to the Poleska camp. Several of the new arrivals tried to escape from the camp on the following day, but most were murdered on August 27-28 in the Tutowicze Forest near Sarny, along with the Jews of Sarny, Rokitno, Klesów, Bereżnica, and Tomaszgorod. Some 30 Jews found hiding in and around the Dąbrowica Ghetto were shot dead at the Jewish cemetery in late August 1942. In September that year, the remaining several dozen Jews, who had been in charge of "clearing out" the ghetto, were shot, too. Dąbrowica was liberated by the Red Army on January 10, 1944.