Belohirya is an urban-type settlement and the district centre in the Khmelnytskyi region. In 2011, the population was 5,483. The settlement is located along the Gorin River.
Before 1946, the settlement was known as Lyakhovtsi.
Lyakhovtsi was first mentioned in historical documents in 1441. From the 16th to 18th centuries, it was a city in the Kremenets County of the Volyn Voivodeship within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
In 1793, Lyakhovtsi became a part of the Russian Empire. In the 19th to early 20th century, it was a shtetl in the Ostroh County of the Volyn Governorate.
Lyakhovtsi entrepreneurs list from Russian Empire Business Directories by 1913
In 1708, the Jews of Lyakhovtsi suffered greatly from raids by Cossack, Swedish, and Russian troops. Representatives of the Jewish population and the bourgeoisie declared on December 5, 1708, that the city had been destroyed.
In 1867, there was a synagogue in Belohirya. In 1910, there was a public one-class Jewish elementary school with a crafts department, Talmud-Torah, and a private Jewish male school.
Lyakhovtsi on the picture of Napoleon Orda, beginning of 19 century
I could not find information on the pogroms during the Russian Civil War, but by the 1910s, the town’s Jewish population had decreased by half.
I couldn’t found information about Jews of Lyakhovtsi between the WWI and WWII.
Lyakhovtsi market square in 1930
Holocaust
The ghetto in Lyakhovtsi consisted of 2-3 streets on the outskirts of the town, enclosed by barbed wire. Prior to the war, it was the residence of the poorest Jews in Lyakhovtsi. Local Jews were already living in the ghetto, and Jews from Yampil and Kornitsa were also added. In total, there were more than 3,000 people in the ghetto.
In the ghetto, prisoners were forced to wear armbands with the Star of David and to sew a yellow circle onto their clothing on their backs.
View to Lyakhovtsi from the hill, 2022
Ida Kritman mentioned some other Jews who were with her in the ghetto in her interview:
Anna Yakovlevna Kharakh, a Jewish woman, worked as a doctor at the local hospital. Some Jews were killed in the ghetto even before the mass shooting, including Hannah Kornblit, Izya Takhman, and the Karafin family, Haya and Ella. Their two sons were called up to the Red Army. Son Samuel was a scout and survived. After the war, he worked for the KGB in Zaporizhia.
Many people died in the ghetto due to intolerable living conditions, hunger, and disease.
On June 20, 1942, a policeman released Ida Kritman from the ghetto in exchange for a bribe in the form of a bicycle.
I got some information about the ghetto in Lyakhovtsy from an interview with Grigory Tetelboim. He was initially from Izyaslav and spent one month in the Lyakhovetsk ghetto.
In his interview, he mentioned the following facts:
All the Jews who held leadership positions under the Soviet regime were killed in the first months of the occupation.
Police officers killed any Jews who did not wear an armband on the spot.
The head of the ghetto was Yudka (surname unknown). He was imprisoned under the Soviet regime for something. His son was in the Red Army.
There were workshops in the ghetto that served the Germans, and several people worked there. One of them was named Singer.
“On one day, the Germans took 105 people from the ghetto. Five people were shot immediately, and the rest were sent to Iziaslav. There, they loaded carts with various items necessary for the German army and accompanied them to Donetsk. That’s how Grigory Tetelboim left the Lakhovets ghetto.
On June 27, 1942, the police took the ghetto population to the location of Tudyin and shot them there. About 2300 Jews were killed. The police guarding the crime scene ensured no one pulled out anyone still alive from the pit.
Tailor Moishe (Mykhailo Kozlubinsky) emerged from the pit. The locals fed him and gave him a change of clothes. He left in an unknown direction, and his fate is unknown. He probably did not survive the war.
Among the executed were the teachers of the local school, Issak Moisiyovich Shpital , Clara Yosipivna Fusid, and Zizya Berkivna Bekker.
Near the mass grave, 1970s-1980s. Photo from archive of Ida Kritman
Recognition of the mass grave and permission to erect a monument was obtained. During this time, the younger generation stood by their parents to fulfil their sacred duty. Samuel Gitelman’s daughter, Faina, had already graduated from college and worked at the Chernivtsi Machine-Building Plant. This made it possible to purchase materials for the monument there. Larisa Roytman made all the necessary drawings. Five of her relatives died under German bullets in this place. The long-awaited obelisk was already on the pedestal.
But although the state did not spend a penny on its financing, checks were just a little behind. Several times, the car carrying everything purchased with collected funds was turned back from the road to Bilohirya. Every time, new prohibitions were invented, and new stamps or signatures were required. The memorial was only built in 1967.
Grigory Berger, Samuel Gitelman, Rahil Yarova, and Israel Tsukerman searched for fellow villagers whose fate had scattered across the country.
Here are the translations for the two paragraphs:
“In the 1970s, two imitation graves were arranged, and a monument was erected on the site of the execution of Jews. The monument indicated the number of people killed by the fascist occupiers – 2,000. “The living will not forget you” were written on it. There was supposed to be a continuation: “And will not forgive.” However, the party committee advised removing these words.
Centre of Lyakhovtsi, 2022
In 2023, the local library published a small brochure about this tragedy:
Скорботна свічка памяті
Memorial meeting in 2020s:
I was not able to find information about Jews who lived in Belogorye after the war.
Canon from Lyakhovtsi castle which was destroyed during Khmelnitskiy uprising in 1648-1649. Canon was found in 1988.
Famous Jews from Lyakhovtsi
Benzion Feigan (1881-1934, Buenos Aires) was a publicist (in Yiddish) and lived in Argentina from 1910.
Shmoish Yuri Romanovich lived in Khmelnytskyi and erected a small monument to his killed ancestors on the mass grave before leaving for the United States.”
Jewish cemetery
There was a Jewish cemetery but I could found exact location and make photos 