Kovel

The name Kovel comes from a Slavonic word for blacksmith hence the horseshoe on the town's coat of arms. The rune-inscribed Spearhead of Kovel was found near Kovel in 1858. It dates to the early 3rd century, when Gothic tribes lived in the area.

Kovel (Kowel) was first mentioned in 1310.{{cite book |title=Wołyń |last=Rąkowski |first=Grzegorz |year=2005 |publisher=Oficyna Wydawnicza "Rewasz" |location=Pruszków |isbn=83-89188-32-5 |page=85 }} It received its town charter from the Polish King Sigismund I the Old in 1518. In 1547 the owner of Kowel became Bona Sforza, Polish queen. Since 1564 the starost of Kowel was Andrei Kurbski (d. 1584). From 1566 to 1795 it was part of the Volhynian Voivodeship. Kowel was a royal city of Poland. In 1792 the 3rd Polish Vanguard Regiment was garrisoned in Kowel, and later on also the 2nd Polish National Cavalry Brigade was stationed there.{{cite book|last=Gembarzewski|first=Bronisław|title=Rodowody pułków polskich i oddziałów równorzędnych od r. 1717 do r. 1831|year=1925|language=pl|publisher=Towarzystwo Wiedzy Wojskowej|location=Warszawa|pages=7, 11}}

{{stack|File:BFC Kowel vokzalnaya 1918.jpg ca. 1918.[http://www.bfcollection.net/cities/ukraine/kovel/kovel.html Photograph from the Boris Feldblyum Collection]]]|

File:Ковель - Костел (дер.) з с. Вишеньки Рожищенського району-1.jpg}}

After the Third Partition of Poland, in 1795, the town fell into the Russian Empire for over a hundred years. During the First World War, the city was a site of the Battle of Kowel between the Central Powers and the Russian Empire.

During the Polish–Soviet War, on September 12, 1920, it was the site of a battle between the Poles and Russians.{{cite book|last=Ryłko|first=Władysław|year=1929|title=Zarys historji wojennej 7-go pułku artylerii polowej|language=pl|location=Warszawa|pages=22-23}} The Poles won the battle, capturing a large amount of weapons and military equipment, including two armored trains and 26 cannons. In the interwar period, Kowel served as the capital of Kowel County in Wołyń Voivodeship of the Polish Republic. It was an important garrison of the Polish Army, here the headquarters of the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division was located. Furthermore, at the village of Czerkasy, a large depot of the Polish Army was located. In 1924, construction of the St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Roman Catholic church began.

In World War II, following the joint Nazi German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Kovel was occupied by the Soviet Union and had a large number of Jewish refugees from German-occupied Poland. The area had a large presence of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, and thus the Red Army was generally greeted as liberators.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/173248974 |title=The Shoah in Ukraine : history, testimony, memorialization |date=2008 |publisher=Indiana University Press |others=Ray Brandon, Wendy Lower, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |isbn=978-0-253-35084-8 |page=85|location=Bloomington |oclc=173248974}} Subsequently, in 1941 Operation Barbarossa the Germans having conquered the town on 28 June 1941 murdered 18,000 Jews in Kovel, mostly during August and September 1942. The Germans operated the Stalag 301 POW camp, a subcamp of the Stalag 360 POW camp and a Dulag transit POW camp in the town.{{cite book|last1=Megargee|first1=Geoffrey P.|last2=Overmans|first2=Rüdiger|last3=Vogt|first3=Wolfgang|year=2022|title=The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945. Volume IV|publisher=Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|pages=96, 282, 363|isbn=978-0-253-06089-1}}

About 8,000 Jews were murdered in the forest near Bakhiv on 19 August 1942 during the liquidation of the Kovel ghetto, established on 25 May 1942. Jewish victims were driven by train from Kovel to Bakhiv where pits were dug close to the railroads. Actually there were two ghettos, one within the city and another in the suburbs of Pyaski. Both ghettos had 24,000 Jews, including many refugees. The Jews from both ghettos were executed at different places and at different time. The Jewish community ceased to exist.{{Cite web|url=http://yahadmap.org/#village/bakhiv-volyn-ukraine.4|title=Yahad - in Unum}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.protecting-memory.org/en/memorial-sites/bakhiv-2/|title=Bakhiv (Kovel)}}

In March and April 1944 during the Soviet Polesskoe offensive, Kovel was a site of fierce fighting between the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking and the Red Army.

During the massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, the town was a shelter for ethnic Poles, escaping the massacres. In that period, Ukrainian nationalists murdered approximately 3,700 Polish inhabitants of Kovel county. In early spring 1944, the 27th Infantry Division of the Home Army operated in the area. Kovel was captured by the Red Army on 6 July 1944.{{cn|date=June 2023}} In 1945, the Big Three, Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, established new borders for Poland; the Polish population was forcibly resettled and Kovel was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It has been a part of sovereign Ukraine since 1991.

{{Weather box

| width = auto

| metric first = yes

| single line = yes

| location = Kovel (1991–2020)

| Jan high C = 0.2

| Feb high C = 2.0

| Mar high C = 7.3

| Apr high C = 15.0

| May high C = 20.8

| Jun high C = 24.1

| Jul high C = 26.0

| Aug high C = 25.5

| Sep high C = 19.6

| Oct high C = 13.2

| Nov high C = 6.4

| Dec high C = 1.5

| year high C = 13.5

| Jan mean C = -2.4

| Feb mean C = -1.4

| Mar mean C = 2.7

| Apr mean C = 9.1

| May mean C = 14.4

| Jun mean C = 17.9

| Jul mean C = 19.7

| Aug mean C = 18.8

| Sep mean C = 13.6

| Oct mean C = 8.2

| Nov mean C = 3.2

| Dec mean C = -1.0

| year mean C = 8.6

| Jan low C = -5.0

| Feb low C = -4.3

| Mar low C = -1.2

| Apr low C = 4.9

| May low C = 8.7

| Jun low C = 12.3

| Jul low C = 14.2

| Aug low C = 13.1

| Sep low C = 8.7

| Oct low C = 4.2

| Nov low C = 0.6

| Dec low C = -3.1

| year low C = 4.4

| precipitation colour = green

| Jan precipitation mm = 36

| Feb precipitation mm = 35

| Mar precipitation mm = 39

| Apr precipitation mm = 41

| May precipitation mm = 68

| Jun precipitation mm = 80

| Jul precipitation mm = 88

| Aug precipitation mm = 61

| Sep precipitation mm = 63

| Oct precipitation mm = 44

| Nov precipitation mm = 40

| Dec precipitation mm = 42

| year precipitation mm = 637

| unit precipitation days = 1.0 mm

| Jan precipitation days = 9.2

| Feb precipitation days = 9.2

| Mar precipitation days = 9.1

| Apr precipitation days = 8.2

| May precipitation days = 9.5

| Jun precipitation days = 9.6

| Jul precipitation days = 9.9

| Aug precipitation days = 7.6

| Sep precipitation days = 8.1

| Oct precipitation days = 8.1

| Nov precipitation days = 9.4

| Dec precipitation days = 9.9

| year precipitation days = 107.8

| Jan humidity = 85.8

| Feb humidity = 83.0

| Mar humidity = 76.1

| Apr humidity = 68.4

| May humidity = 69.8

| Jun humidity = 71.9

| Jul humidity = 73.8

| Aug humidity = 73.9

| Sep humidity = 80.1

| Oct humidity = 82.6

| Nov humidity = 87.0

| Dec humidity = 87.7

| year humidity = 78.3

| Jan sun = 43

| Feb sun = 66

| Mar sun = 136

| Apr sun = 197

| May sun = 254

| Jun sun = 268

| Jul sun = 272

| Aug sun = 263

| Sep sun = 172

| Oct sun = 119

| Nov sun = 50

| Dec sun = 32

| year sun = 1872

| source 1 = NOAA{{cite web

|url = https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/oceans/archive/arc0216/0253808/4.4/data/0-data/Region-6-WMO-Normals-9120/Ukraine/CSV/Kovel_33173.csv

|title = World Meteorological Organization Climate Normals for 1991-2020 — Kovel

|publisher = National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

|access-date = June 16, 2024}}

}}

File:Залізничний вокзал Ковель.jpg

File:Вокзал станції Ковель.jpg

Kovel is the north-western hub of the Ukrainian rail system, with six rail lines radiating outward from the city. The first of these was built in 1873, connecting the city with Brest-Litovsk and Rivne. In 1877 Kovel was linked by the Vistula River Railroad with Lublin and Warsaw.

• Meir Auerbach (1815–1877), first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem
• Lesya Ukrainka (1871–1913), Ukrainian poet
• Israel Friedlander (1876–1920), rabbi, educator, and biblical scholar
• Frieda Hennock (1904–1960), first female commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission
• Michał Waszyński (1904–1965), film director and producer
• Abraham Zapruder (1905–1970), clothing manufacturer who filmed the assassination of John F. Kennedy
• Kazimierz Dejmek (1924–2002), Polish actor and theatre and film director, and politician
• Ryszard Horodecki (born 1943), Polish physicist and professor of University of Gdańsk
• Serhiy Chapko (born 1988), professional footballer

{{See also|List of twin towns and sister cities in Ukraine}}

Kovel is twinned with:{{cite web |title=Міста партнери|url=http://www.kovelrada.gov.ua/partners.html|website=kovelrada.gov.ua|publisher=Kovel|language=uk|access-date=2020-03-31}}

{{div col|colwidth=15em}}

• {{flagicon|USA}} Chamblee, United States{{cite web |title=Sister City - Kovel, Ukraine|url=https://www.chambleega.com/community_engagement/kovel,_ukraine.php|website=www.chambleega.com|publisher=Chamblee|access-date=2025-05-12}}
• {{flagicon|POL}} Baboszewo, Poland
• {{flagicon|GER}} Barsinghausen, Germany
• {{flagicon|POL}} Brzeg Dolny, Poland
• {{flagicon|UKR}} Bucha, Ukraine
• {{flagicon|POL}} Chełm, Poland
• {{flagicon|POL}} Łęczna, Poland
• {{flagicon|POL}} Legionowo, Poland
• {{flagicon|UKR}} Nikolske, Ukraine
• {{flagicon|BLR}} Shchuchyn, Belarus
• {{flagicon|UKR}} Smila, Ukraine
• {{flagicon|POL}} Szczuczyn, Poland
• {{flagicon|LTU}} Utena, Lithuania
• {{flagicon|GER}} Walsrode, Germany

{{div col end}}

{{reflist}}

{{commons category|Kovel}}

• [https://kovel.media Kovel News] {{in lang|uk}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080725090535/http://www.kresy.co.uk/kowel.html Short history of Kowel] {{in lang|en}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090620030048/http://www.wp39.pl/kowel Carrier "Kowel" leased by Poland during World War II]
• Tineke Looijenga, [https://books.google.com/books?id=-edm1fMPbXwC&dq=Kowel&pg=PA127 Texts & contexts of the oldest Runic inscriptions] Published by BRILL. Page 127
• [http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%202490.pdf A Testament of a Jewish Woman from Kowel, Poland] Source: Safira Rapoport (Ed.), Yesterdays and then Tomorrows, Yad Vashem 2002, p. 183 (in the Hebrew edition).
• David Pentland, [http://www.military-art.com/mall/more.php?ProdID=15699 "Fight for Kowel, Poland, March/April 1944"], Gerhard Fischer Knights Cross signature series
• [http://www.bfcollection.net/cities/ukraine/kovel/kovel.html Historic images of Kovel]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060926181519/http://sunsite.berkeley.edu:8085/x-ussr/100k/M-35-026.jpg Soviet topographic map 1:100 000]
• [http://photoua.net/show_en.php?cur_cat_id=98&size=little Photos of Kovel at "Ukraine Photos"]
• http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/kovel/kovel.htm
• http://www.israeli-kovel-org.org/english.html

{{Volyn Oblast}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Cities in Volyn Oblast

Category:Historic Jewish communities in Ukraine

Category:Cities of regional significance in Ukraine

Category:Holocaust locations in Ukraine