Berezne Березне | |
|---|---|
 Holy Trinity Church | |
 Coat of arms | |
  Berezne  Berezne | |
| Coordinates:50°59′48″N26°44′22″E / 50.99667°N 26.73944°E /50.99667; 26.73944 | |
| Country |  Ukraine |
| Oblast | Rivne Oblast |
| Raion | Rivne Raion |
| Hromada | Berezne urban hromada |
| First mentioned | 1445 |
| Magdeburg law | 1584 |
| Population (2022) | |
• Total | 13,126 |
Berezne (Ukrainian:Березне,IPA:[beˈrɛzne]) is acity inRivne Oblast,Ukraine. It is located on theSluch River north ofRivne. It was theadministrative center ofBerezne Raion until it was merged withRivne Raion in 2020. Population:13,126 (2022 estimate).[1]
Berezne (historically known also as Bereźno as well asPolish:Jędrzejów, andUkrainian:Андріїв)[2][3] was established in 1446 within thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Since theUnion of Lublin the town was part of theKingdom of Poland, where it remained until thePartitions of Poland byAustria,Prussia andRussia. The town was overrun byKhmelnytsky in theKhmelnytsky Uprising of 1648 and experienced bloodypogroms which took many innocent lives. Annexed by theRussian Empire in 1793, Berezne was ceded to Poland in 1919–21 during thePeace of Riga. In theSecond Polish Republic there was a garrison of theBorder Protection Corps Bereźne Battalion in the town. Until theSoviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Bereźne belonged theWołyń Voivodeship's County of Kostopol. According to thePolish 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.[4]
In theSecond Polish Republic during theinterwar 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 inLiuboml.[5]
Bereźne was overrun by the Soviets in 1939. In 1941 the GermanWehrmacht entered the town as part ofOperation 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 thelocal ghetto. In the following year the UkrainianHilfsverwaltung 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 asthe Holocaust by bullets.[6]
In 1943, during theVolhynian Genocide, 96 ethnic Poles of Berezne were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists of theUkrainian 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 asRowne. 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 theBerezne Raion ofwestern 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".[6]
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.
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