Berezne#History

Berezne (historically known also as Bereźno as well as {{langx|pl|Jędrzejów}}, and {{langx|uk|Андріїв}}){{cite web |at=The town of Berezne (other names: Bereźno, Berezno, Bereźne), formerly Jędrzejów on the River Słucz in the old Rovno County (Powiat Rówieński) of the Volhynian Gubernia, after administrative changes in the Polish Second Republic in 1922, was assigned to Powiat Kostopol as seat of the Kostopol County. |url=http://wolyn.republika.pl/opisy/berezne-03.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180129004301/http://wolyn.republika.pl/opisy/berezne-03.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2018-01-29 |title=BEREZNE, gmina Bereźne, powiat Kostopol, woj. wołyńskie |via=Internet Archive, 2018-01-29 |website=Wolyn.Republika.pl}}{{cite web |url=http://www.berezne.org:80/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090407080923/http://www.berezne.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=1 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2009-04-07 |title=Історія міста Березне |trans-title=History of Berezne |website=www.berezne.org |language=uk |via=Internet Archive, 2009-04-07. |year=2008 |access-date=2021-05-27 }} was established in 1446 within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Since the Union of Lublin the town was part of the Kingdom of Poland, where it remained until the Partitions of Poland by Austria, Prussia and Russia. The town was overrun by Khmelnytsky in the Khmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and experienced bloody pogroms which took many innocent lives. Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793, Berezne was ceded to Poland in 1919–21 during the Peace of Riga. In the Second Polish Republic there was a garrison of the Border Protection Corps Bereźne Battalion in the town. Until the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Bereźne belonged the Wołyń Voivodeship's County of Kostopol. According to the Polish census of 1931, the whole county had a population of 159,600 inhabitants, including 102,609 Ukrainians (overwhelmingly in villages: at 100,651), 34,450 Poles (32,189 in villages), and 10,786 Jews, along with significant numbers of Germans, Czechs, and Ruthenians.{{cite journal |title=Population of Powiat Kostopol per religion, gender and language |journal=Polish National Census of 1931 for the Volynian Voivodeship |url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Woj.wo%C5%82y%C5%84skie-Polska_spis_powszechny_1931.pdf |at=Page 56 / 361 in current document (or 26 in print) |via=Wikimedia Commons |author=GUS |author-link=Central Statistical Office (Poland) |year=1938}}

In the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period, Bereźne bore the distinction of being one of the two cities in Poland with the most Jewish inhabitants in the country. Some 94.6 percent of Bereźne overall population of 2,494 inhabitants (or 2,360 persons), were Jewish. The second largest Jewish presence in Poland, amounting to 94.4 percent of the town's population, was in Liuboml.{{cite book |chapter=VIII. Język. Narodowość. Wyznanie |author=Gawryszewski, A. |year=2005 |trans-title=Ludność Polski w XX wieku |title=People of Poland in the 20th Century |location=Warsaw |series=Monographs (Monografie): 5 |publisher=Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization IGiPZ PAN |issn=1643-2312 |quote=Najwyższy udział ludności wyznania mojżeszowego charakteryzował dwa miasta na Wołyniu: Luboml (94,4%) liczący 3328 mieszkańców, w tym 3141 Żydów, i Bereźne (94,6%) z 2494 mieszkańcami, w tym 2360 wyznania mojżeszowego. |url=http://www.igipz.pan.pl/wydaw/Monografie_5/rozdz8.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091122200031/http://www.igipz.pan.pl/wydaw/Monografie_5/rozdz8.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=2009-11-22 |at=Page 44 / 80 in current document (or 282 in print) |via=Internet Archive}}

File:Berezne park1.jpg

File:Berezne Forestry College1.jpg

Bereźne was overrun by the Soviets in 1939. In 1941 the German Wehrmacht entered the town as part of Operation Barbarossa. Immediately almost all Jewish homes were set on fire and the Jews were left with virtually no possessions. The Jews of Berezne, who then numbered approximately 3,000, were forced to live in three buildings surrounded by walls. This small area became known as the local ghetto. In the following year the Ukrainian Hilfsverwaltung together with the Germans, used Jews for slave labor, and hardly any food was supplied for them. The Jews forced to work in the forest were frequently tortured. Those who escaped related accounts of the slave labor and beatings. In August 1942 a detachment of SD entered the town. Immediately the Jews received even more severe beatings. Three days later all Jews that could be found were taken from the ghetto into the woods, where they were forced to dig a large pit. They were shot and buried at the same location. Many of the Jews that escaped into the woods were caught and delivered to the Germans by the local Ukrainians, who aided the SS in the process of "ethnic cleansing" known as the Holocaust by bullets.{{cite web |title=History of the Jewish community of Bereźne. |trans-title=Historia. Społeczność żydowska |publisher=Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/pl/article/berezne/5,historia/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121221160902/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/pl/article/berezne/5,historia/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=2012-12-21 |author=Virtual Shtetl |author-link=Virtual Shtetl |via=Archive.is 2012-12-21}}

In 1943, during the Volhynian Genocide, 96 ethnic Poles of Berezne were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The first attack on the town took place in June 1943. Other attacks occurred in the second half of that year, and as a result Polish survivors fled to larger towns, such as Rowne. In June 1945 the remaining Poles were forced to leave Berezne in accordance with the Allied treaties.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, culminating with Ukrainian independence, Berezne became the administrative centre of the Berezne Raion of western Ukraine.

Only a few hundred of the Jews of Berezne survived the Holocaust. Most of them escaped from the forest camp to the village of Mazorisz (Mazorish) where the Polish villagers that gave them food and shelter in return for firewood used for heating. Some left the area together with the Communists, before the Nazis entered. For many years there stood a monument memorializing the over 3,000 men, women, and children who were slaughtered by the Nazis and local Ukrainian collaborators, at the site of their mass grave. Corresponding to common Soviet practice, the Soviet authorities refused to mention on the monument that the 3,680 murdered victims were Jews, instead describing them as "citizens of the Soviet Union".

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• {{cite book|last1=Weiner|first1=Miriam|last2=Ukrainian State Archives (in cooperation with)|last3=Moldovan National Archives (in cooperation with)|title=Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories|date=1999|publisher=Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation|location=Secaucus, NJ|isbn=978-0-96-565081-6|url=http://www.rtrfoundation.org/webart/BEREZNO.pdf|chapter=Chapter 11: Town Clips: Berezno|oclc=607423469|page=404}}

• {{JewishGen-LocalityPage|1035456|Berezne, Ukraine}}

{{Rivne Oblast}}

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Category:Cities in Rivne Oblast

Category:Populated places established in the 1440s

Category:1445 establishments in Europe

Category:Cities of district significance in Ukraine

Category:Holocaust locations in Ukraine

Category:15th-century establishments in Ukraine

Category:Sites of World War II massacres of Poles