Olyka

Jewish presence in Olyka dates back to the 16th century, and in the late 17th century the Jewish community became one of the largest in the Volhyn Region.[2][8]

After the Cossack Chmielnicki Uprising of 1648, 20 out of 30 Jewish households survived.[2] It was believed that the prayer by Rabbi David HaLevi Segal miraculously saved the Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of Olyka from the Cossacks' assault of 1651.[2][11][12]

Olyka was the cradle of the Olyker Hasidic dynasty that was founded by the famous Rabbi Hersh Leib Landa the first Olyker rebbe. He was followed by his son Rabbi Yosef (Yoseph) Dovid, who was followed by his son Rabbi Mordechai (he authored a book called Gedulas Mordechai). He was followed by his son Rabbi Shimon Shloima (he authored a book called Shekel Hakodesh, and was father-in-law of Rabbi Yochanan Perlow of the Karliner Dynasty), who was followed by his son Rabbi Alter Yosef (Yoseph) Dovid.[13][14]

In 1897 a total of 2,606 people – 50 percent of the total Olyka population – were Jews, and that amount increased when many Jewish refugees from nearby towns fled to Olyka during World War I.[8] According to the 1921 census, the number of Jews living in Olyka had decreased to 2,086 individuals.[15]

Monument outside Olyka commemorating over 4,000 Jews massacred during Holocaust in 1942, photo by Sergei Shvardovskyi

Olyka's large Jewish community was completely destroyed during the Holocaust, including Nazi persecutions at the site of the Radziwill Fortress/Olyka Castle. It is an important place of Jewish memory.[2][16][17][18][19][20] Rabbi Alter Yosef Dovid Landa and his family perished.[13]

Following the September 1939 Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and German-Soviet Occupation of Poland, many Jewish refugees from central and western Poland settled in Olyka in the fall of 1939, as did 60 Jewish refugees from Czechoslovakia.[8][15] Jewish organizations and institutions were forced to disband.[8] After the German invasion of Ukraine in June 1941, as part of Operation Barbarossa, the German 6th Army entered Olyka, destroyed houses, killed 100 Jews, and kept the remaining Jews in an open ghetto.[8][21] Around 150 Jews evacuated eastward; most Jews stayed in the ghetto.[15] Jews and non-Jewish Ukrainians continued to trade goods and food in and around the ghetto; for example, an Olyka ghetto Jew traded his house for sixteen kilograms of rye due to famine.[22] As part of the Einsatzgruppen aktion of August 1941, 720 Jews, including Rabbi Alter Yosef Dovid Landa, were killed at the Olyka Castle and at the town's Jewish cemetery towards Czemeryn.[8][15][21][23][24][25]

In March 1942, Jews from surrounding villages were brought into Olyka, and a closed ghetto was created with barbed-wire fence to imprison those inside.[8][15][22] More than 4,000 Jews were shot to death by Nazi and Ukrainian forces in the summer of 1942, in and around the Olyka ghetto, Radziwill Fortress, Olyka Castle, and surrounding areas.[8][15][19][26] Monuments outside Olyka commemorate this massacre.[19][20] The mass grave is located on the road to Zhornische (Żorniszcze).[23][25][27][28]

Accounts vary as to the total number of Jews in and around Olyka who had died by the time the Olyka ghetto was liquidated in July/August 1942. Given the circumstances of Nazi massacres, it has been difficult to accurately count the dead. Most reports state the total amounted to 5,220 to 5,673 Jews.[15][29] In early 1943, 130 remaining Jewish artisans remaining in the ghetto were shot to death.[8][15][23] Although Olyka's Great Synagogue was intact after the summer 1942 ghetto liquidation, it was destroyed by war's end.[2] Israel's Holon Cemetery has a monument in memory of those Jews of Olyka and its surroundings, who died in the Holocaust.[30]

Fewer than 30 Jews escaped to the forest in the summer of 1942. Of those survivors, 23 men created a partisan unit with 30 Jews already outside the village. They joined the underground resistance in the region against the Nazis, and a small number survived after early 1943.[31]