Radziechow

Jews lived in Radziechów from the 18th century. At that time, the town was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the late 18th century, following the Partitions of Poland, Radziechów was incorporated into the Austrian (later the Austro-Hungarian) Empire. In 1900, Radziechów was home to 1,737 Jews, who constituted 44.4 percent of the total population.

Although adherents of Belz Chassidism made up a large part of the local Jewish community, Zionist ideas began to spread there already in the late 19th century, and by the turn of the century Zionist parties won the lion's share of the votes of local Jews in the elections to the Austrian parliament.

After the end of World War I, Radziechów found itself within the borders of the Second Polish Republic. In the 1920s and 1930s, the economic situation of the Jews of Radziechów deteriorated considerably because of the discriminatory policies of the Polish authorities and the establishment of local Ukrainian and Polish customers' cooperatives. The Jews of Radziechów were politically active. For most of the interwar period, the political sympathies of the local Jews were divided between the Zionist parties and the religious Orthodox Agudath Israel party.

In the early 1920s, a complementary Tarbut school, with Hebrew as the language of instruction, was opened in Radziechów, and it was supported financially by the town council. In the early 1930s, vocational training courses were offered to local Jews.

Following the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Jewish refugees from western and central Poland began to arrive in Radziechów. They were assisted by the local Jewish population. On September 20, 1939, the Red Army entered the town, and Radziechów, along with the rest of Eastern Galicia, was annexed by the Soviet Union. During the early Soviet period, all the Jewish political and communal bodies were banned. The economy was nationalized, and many Jews lost their livelihood. The former Jewish merchants were forced to seek out new occupations, and many of them found employment in state and government service, while the artisans were united in cooperatives. On June 29, 1940, the Jewish refugees from western and central Poland who had declined the offer of Soviet citizenship were deported into the Soviet interior.

German troops occupied Radziechów on June 24, 1941. On the very first day of the German occupation, four Jewish Soviet activists were murdered in the town. Subsequently, Ukrainian auxiliary policemen began to seize Jewish men for forced labor on a daily basis. In the summer of 1941, Jews from the surrounding localities were brought to Radziechów. In early August that year, a Judenrat, headed by Adolf Kranz, was established in the town. Upon the Germans' orders, the Judenrat carried out a census of the Jewish population of Radziechów and registered all the able-bodied Jews aged 15-60. The artisans were then assigned to workshops catering to the Germans' needs. In the fall-winter of 1941/1942, many local Jews were sent to forced labor camps in the area. In the spring and summer of 1942, additional Jews were brought to Radziechów from the surrounding localities.

On September 15, 1942, some 1,500 Jews from Radziechów were deported to the Belzec death camp. On September 21 that year, the day of Yom Kippur, several hundred Jews were taken from Radziechów to the locality of Kamionka Strumiłowa and murdered there, along with Jews brought over from other nearby settlements. After these massacres, only a handful of Jewish artisans remained in Radziechów, but the Germans once again brought additional Jews from the surrounding area to the town, and in early October 1942 a ghetto was established in Radziechów. However, it was a mere transit station on the road to the Belzec death camp.

In early December 1942, the last inmates of the Radziechów Ghetto were deported to Sokal, while some 100 Jews were temporarily left in Radziechów to take care of the abandoned Jewish property. These Jews were murdered near the town in mid-March 1943.

The Red Army liberated Radziechów on July 17, 1944.