Dubrovytsia ( ; ; ) is a city in Rivne Oblast, Ukraine. It was the administrative center of Dubrovytsia Raion until the raion was abolished in 2020. It is the site of the now ruined Jewish shtetl of Dombrovitza. Population:
Among the most notable historical landmarks in the city are a rococo Roman Catholic church founded in 1740 by Kazimierz Pniewski and two Orthodox churches: one founded in 1861 by Ignacy Plater (whose manor until 1917 was located in Worobin, some 3 kilometres north of the city) and the other built in 1872. Until the Holocaust the city also had three synagogues.
Geography Dubrovytsia is located upon the Horyn river in the historical region of Volhynian Polesia.
History Initially one part of the Kyivan Rus Turov-Pinsk Principality, during the late 12th century Dubrovytsia became the centre of a separate fiefdom. Its princes took part in wars against Cumans and Mongols, including the Battle of Kalka in 1223. During the latter half of the 14th century Dubrovytsia became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and came under control of the Holszanski family. In 1571 it was transferred as dowry to prince Andrey Kurbsky. During the Great Northern War the local wooden Church of John the Baptist was destroyed by troops of Charles XII of Sweden. Among notbale people who visited or lived in Dubrovytsia during the 19th century were Napoleon Orda and Nadezhda Durova.
Although in modern times part of Rivne Oblast, Dubrovytsia was historically not part of Volhynia but rather Land of Brest. It was not until 1805 that it was administratively attached to Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire, along with many other lands formerly belonging to now-partitioned Poland.
In 19th century Dąbrowica was a notable centre of commerce, with a number of factories and manufactures serving the local market. It was also notable for its college run by Piarist monks, established in 1695 by Jan Dolski. Although the Piarist convent was dissolved in 1832 in the aftermath of the November Uprising, the school continued to exist until it was closed by Soviet authorities in 1939, following the joint Soviet and German invasion of Poland. Among its alumni were Cyprian Godebski, Alojzy Feliński and Łukasz Gołębiowski.
During World War I and the two years following it, the town passed hands many times between various powers including the Bolshevik Russian army, the Polish Democratic Republic army, local Militia (Bolokhovists), national Ukrainian forces led by Petliura, the German army and allied Hetman authorities, a local rebel army (which included all four ethnicity groups: Jews, Poles, Ukrainians and Germans) and others.
The town was owned by a Polish noble family, the Pliater brothers, who were murdered by the farmers as part of the socialist revolution on November 22, 1918. A younger brother survived, but moved away. The town was declared under communist (Bolshevik) self-rule. The Ukrainian army under Symon Petliura took the town for two days.
During the Polish rule the cooperative movement developed in Dubrovytsia. A local football team was active during the 1930s. In 1931 the town's population reached the number of 7,000 inhabitants. In September 1939 the Soviets took over the town, in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Ukrainian Insurgent Army led resistance against the Soviet regime in the area until 1947.
Under the Soviet rule Dubrovytsia functioned as a river port and hosted a cotton factory. Motoball competitions became a point of pride for locals In 1983 the city celebrated its 800th anniversary, but following a historical revision, in 2005 the millennium of Dubrovytsia's history was marked with festivities. In independent Ukraine Dubrovytsia is known as a centre of illegal amber production.
History of the Dubrovytsia Jews
A large Jewish population thrived at the center of town, owning many of the stores and houses there, in what was called the Dombrovitza shtetl. Jews also owned the timber cutting factories, one of the major industries in the area.Dombrowica Memorial Book (Translated from Yiddish to Hebrew), Yad Vashem.
World War I and the aftermath
In 1915 with the withdrawal of the Polish army of Nikolai, trains with Jewish refugees and Jewish soldiers reached the town, and the synagogues were used to host many of them. Until 1917 the 83rd division of the Polish Democratic Republic stayed in town, expelling many of the Jews from their homes, and annexing their houses.
During the Russian revolution, the Jews were accused of siding with the communists, against the "white Russians" and the Poles, who claimed national sovereignty.
In March 1918 the remnants of the 83rd division of the now deserted army joined forces with Polish militants and began rampaging and killing Jews in the villages around Dubrovytzia. The Jews of the town organized a self-defense team, and during the gathering of the militia with local farmers for a major planned lynch attack, detonated a large bomb in the town market square. Later the head of the militia was caught and imprisoned by the self-defense team. A German army unit took over the town, although Germany had signed a peace agreement and the war supposedly had ended.
In 1919, a mass hanging of Jews from towns nearby in the forest by "Bolokhovist" anti communist Polish and Russian soldiers took place, but the town itself was spared. In 1920 Jews were repeatedly harassed and some killed when the town passed hands back and forth between the Russians and Poles, at one time changing hands three times in one day. Each of the three armies (black, white and red) killed Jews confiscated property and accused the Jews of being loyal to their enemy. During the attack of the 'Petliura forces' in 1919, the Jews fled the town to the nearby Wiesuzk Jews, after hearing of a massacre of some 2000 Jews at Pruskurov. Four townsmen were killed including the ritual butcher, and one woman was killed in Wiesuzk by the Patliura militia. In October 1920, anti communist Bolkhovist (Polish and Russian) militia attacked the Wiesuzk Jews killing many, but were repelled from Dubrovytsia by the Polish major and his army residing in the town.
In 1937 on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, the Polish establishment backed by the police forced the Jews to paint the house fronts and rebuild public parts of the fences within 48 hours. Some of the poorer Jews were beaten.
World War II and the Holocaust In September 1939, with the Soviet takeover, trainloads of refugees reached the town, and were again accommodated in the Jews homes and the synagogues. Jewish and Christian refugees were fed equally in the town's Jewish learning house.
During the 2nd world war the Jews of Dąbrowica went through a year of horrific events, beginning on a Tuesday in June 1941, with the Ukrainian population blowing up the Hassidic synagogue, catching 500 of the prominent Jews in town and gathering them in preparation of a welcoming ceremony for the German army. These Jews were tortured, had their beards torn off, and a few were killed. A short while later the town became part of a German supported Ukrainian self-rule. Under the Ukrainian police, the Jews were sent to forced labor, working with manure, and cutting wood, while their property and possessions were taken from them. A Judenrat was established and a Ghetto. Decrees were given to give in large amounts of gold, fur, and shoes. The Jews of the town assembled trying to keep up with the demands, in makeshift workshops. Jews were told to turn over any good looking daughters, were beaten for refusing to do so, and young girls were kidnapped. The Judenrat was eventually all killed except one man who escaped to the forest. Some of them were burnt alive.
At some time during that year more than 300 Jewish women with their children reached the town from Dwid-Gordok, after the men were all taken to dig defense trenches. A group of men from Dąbrowica investigated and discovered that the men were shot and buried in the trenches, but did not pass this information on to the refugees.
On November 6, 1941, two woman survivors of the massacre of 17,000 Jews at Rowno (Rivne, Ukraine), crawling away after being buried alive, reached Dąbrowica. A short while later a 35-man Gestapo unit entered the town, some of them participants at the Rowno Massacre. A delegation of Jewish rabbis and leaders met the Gestapo, who seemingly were willing to receive money, furniture and food allowing the Jewish population to live. 35 Jews most of them youth were held in prison and tortured. Food for the Jews was rationed down to 800 grams of bread per week per person.The Jews of Rowno Jewish Generations website
Around April 1942 a Ghetto was established in the town for its 4327 Jews. In response to a plea by the Jewish leadership, the Germans allowed for a larger Ghetto than originally planned. The establishment of the Ghetto and response to the plea were seen as a token for German non lethal plans with the Jews.The Ghetto was planned to comprise one side of Shusaina (main) Road, the parallel synagogue street, the Shtiebel Road (where the Jewish study home was) and one side of Bolnitchna Road. It included several extra roads. All gold was to be delivered to the Germans, and the punishment for a Jew holding gold was death. The two old rabbis brought in all their gold, laying an example before the rest of the community, in hope that the Germans would not have further claims. Jews from neighboring villages were forced into the Ghetto as well. During the deportation, the neighbors snatched the Jews' belongings and openly told the refugees that they would not abide by property agreements that they had made with them. The main synagogue was closed and public prayers were not allowed.
57 Jewish policemen guarded the Ghetto mostly collaborating with the Germans, and an antagonism developed between the Judenrat (Jewish committee) and the Jewish population.
Evidence has been gathered that psychologists and other experts were sent to the town, to see to it that the Jewish population complies with the German decrees without revolting.
Ghetto liquidation A notice was put up calling all Jews to assemble on the second day of Shavuot the Jewish holiday of Pentecost at the cemetery. The main synagogue was opened for prayer on the first day of the holiday, and the Jewish speaker for the German rule explained that it is only for a head count. The Jews were sent home.
In the last three months of Ghetto, the Germans put up signs that Jews had poisoned the wells. Christian posters called for the demise of the Jews who were the cause for the fall of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Greece, Chmelnitzki and Petliura.
50 Jewish children returning from forced labor were found with potatoes in their pockets and beaten. Testimony about the massacre of 65 Jewish slave workers from Refalovka at Chestorisk, shot after the first train crossed the bridge they had just finished building, reaches Dubrowica, and about the mass murder of 500 Jews the remnants of Ghetto Pohost, rounded up at Moroczna. Special agents were sent in to the Ghetto to calm the residents and contest the rumors that the Jewish of Kuritz had been killed.
Two weeks before the end, the Jews of Dubrowica learned of the massacre in death trenches of all the Jews of the nearby Rozhichecz, many of them buried alive. Again an agent was sent to disprove the rumors, and claim that the Rozhichecz massacre never happened.
The unit of Ukrainian militia in Dubrowica had participated in the massacre of Jews at Rozhichecz, Kobel and other places, two weeks before. One week before, some of the policemen intended to shoot Jewish forced labor workers coming back from the forest. The policemen were supposedly punished by the German commander, giving the Jews an extra false sense of security.