Yampol

Yampol is a village in the Belogorie district of the Khmelnytskyi region.

It should be distinct from Yampol in the Vinnytsia region, as these are two different places.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the village was called Yanushpol. So, likewise, it should be distinct from Yanushpol in the Zhytomyr region.

More information about PreWWII Yampol can be found in Yampol memorial book.

Yampol was part of the Volyn Voivodeship, Kremenets Powiat, during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the early 18th century, the inhabitants of Yampol, including Jews, were devastated by the armies of Cossacks, Swedes, Poles, and Russians. In 1765, the population was 476.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Yampol was part of the Volyn Province, Kremenets District.

Information about the lives of Jews in Yampol in the 1930s-1940s was taken from a two-hour interview with a native of the village, Ida Kritman, which she gave for the Shoa Foundation project in 1994.

Ida Kritman (on right) with sister during the interview to Shoa Foundation in Polonnoe, 1994

From 1745 to 1755, Rabbi Yekhezkel Lando (Node BeYehuda) (1713-1793) headed the rabbinical court of Yampol. Then, in 1755, he was appointed the chief rabbi of Prague, a post he held for 38 years.

In the second half of the 18th century, Rabbi Yekhiel-Mikhel from Zolochiv settled in Yampol – a disciple of Baal Shem Tov and Magid of Mezritch. He devoted himself entirely to the study of Torah, primarily Kabbalah. In addition, he led an extremely ascetic lifestyle: fasting from Sabbath to Sabbath and not leaving the Beit Midrash all week. Rabbi Yekhiel-Mikhel from Zolochiv died in 1786 and was buried in the old Jewish cemetery of Yampol.

Ohel on the grave of Yekhiel-Mikhel from Zolochiv in Yampol Old Jewish cemetery, 2022

There was a Jewish hospital in the village. Jews owned all five grocery stores, all five tanneries, a store for roofing iron, both hardware stores, all six manufacturing shops, all three flour shops, all three stores for bags and sacks, all three bread shops, and a forest warehouse.

Yampol on the map, 1875

After signing the peace treaty between Poland and the Soviet Union in 1921, Yampol became a border town, as the new border ran 3 km from the village.

A large building was built in the village to house a border military unit. It is now used as a house of culture, with a store in the basement. In addition, the military unit’s parade ground is used as a rural stadium.

Yampol entrepreneurs list from Russian Empire Business Directories by 1913

The Jews mainly lived in the centre of the town. The town’s streets were not paved. Only the sidewalks were made of boards.

In the 1920s, a Jewish school was opened, but it ceased functioning as a Jewish school in the 1930s and was transformed into a Russian school. There was also a Ukrainian school in the town on the outskirts.

After finishing school, the Jewish youth mostly left the town for the big cities of the Soviet Union.

In the town’s centre was a two-story synagogue, with a rabbi, a cantor, and a dayan (Jewish judge). The synagogue was closed in 1930. However, I could not find its location and date when it was destroyed.

Former border military unit in the centre of Yampol, 2022

In the early 1930s, most of the town’s Jews became victims of systematic robbery by the state. The head of Jewish families was arrested by the police, and to secure their release, the family had to pay in gold or dollars. The Jews were not released from prison until the family found the necessary sum. This terror lasted for a year.

A local Jew named Soifer was beaten to death by the Soviet police, and only his body was given to the family for burial.

In the 1930s, the Jews were forced to surrender their family valuables to the state trade organization, Torgsin, to survive the famine.

Ida Kritman, in her interview, remembered some of the town’s residents:
– Tsukerman, who was a butcher
– The Siderman family
– the Grace family, whose head worked in a pharmacy with his wife, and they had a daughter. The entire family perished during the Holocaust
– Gitnik, a disabled man without legs, his elderly wife
– Lucik Grace, a student of the Jewish school.

Main street of Yampol, 2022

During the Stalinist repressions of 1937-1938, 256 people were arrested in Yampol, and 51 were shot. But unfortunately, I couldn’t find out how many of them were Jews.

In 1939, 1,058 Jews were living in Yampol (32.2%), but the Jews comprised the majority of the economically active population.

Holocaust

Jewish population of Yampol:
1847 – 1724 Jews
1897 – 1482 (57%)
1939 – 1058 (32%)

German troops entered Yampol on July 3, 1941. Initially, the German forces only looted the Jewish population, and there were no killings. A local police force was organized, and the newly appointed police officers began settling personal scores with the Jews. An invalid named Gitnik and his wife were killed, as was an elderly woman named Berenshteyn. All Jews were registered, and there were 852 in Yampol.

Anton Krasovsky was the head of Yampol, and while he was not particularly cruel to the Jews, he was later killed by partisans after their eviction.

In September 1941, police were sent to Yampol from across the district. They drove the Jews to the town square and then to Liakhovets. Residents then dismantled the Jewish houses. The ghetto existed from September 1941 to June 27, 1942, when all of its inhabitants were taken to the woods and shot.

Ida Kritman stated in an interview that she had not met a single survivor of the Liakhovets ghetto in 50 years since the war. Therefore, it is possible that she was the only survivor.

Before the arrival of the Germans, three former Jewish school students left Yampol: Boris Tahman, Izya Tsukerman (the son of a butcher), and Zhenya Blekhman.

Chaim-Leib Shmulevich Kritman killed in Lyakhovtsi. Photo was shot in 1941

Izrael Aaronovich Gelman (1924-1996) from Yampol arrived to attend a pedagogical institute in Novocherkassk on June 22, 1941. His entire family was caught in the occupation and killed in Belogorye. Izrael Gelman was one of the organizers of the memorial monument at the mass grave of those shot in Belogorye. After the war, he lived in Khmelnytskyi before emigrating to Israel.

Samuil Elevich Karafin, was drafted from Yampol to Sovier army in the beginning of WW2, survived. Photo was shot in 1947

After the WWII

Kritman Sarra, her three children, and her mother returned after the town’s liberation. After they were evacuated, their Ukrainian housekeeper took everything she could from their home, including their cow. And after the family returned from evacuation, she returned all of their belongings and the cow, which she had kept for three years, to the owners.

Sisters Kritman: Polina and Ida, 1947

After the WWII, next Jews lived in Yampol:

– Boris Izrailevich Tartakovskiy worked as the director of an auto repair plant. He was sent to work there from some other place
– Kritman family
– the Yankel Barannik family with their two sons, Alexander and Fima
– the Berko Miroshnik family, and his wife Ida, who worked in a store
– Noik and his wife Sarah (surname unknown) were engaged in the trade of ice cream and mineral water
– Yefim Illich Spector (1922, Vinnytsia – 2016, USA) came to work in Yampol in 1962. He was the chief physician of the local hospital, and his wife also worked as a doctor. The hospital expanded during his leadership, and new departments were established. He emigrated to the USA after retiring and died there. The family had two sons. The younger son worked as a doctor in Starokonstantinov. The second son lives in Khmelnytskyi.

Boris Izrailevich Tartakovskiy in the head of the column

Yefim Illich Spector with family

In 1997, after his wife’s death, Yefim Illich Spector went to live with his son in the USA. He was a last Jews in Yampol…

In the 2010s, a Jew from the USA bought the plant’s administrative building and turned it into a hotel for Jewish pilgrims who visit the grave of Yeheil-Mikhl from Zolochiv.

Synagogue inside hotel: