Liantskorun

Лянцкорунь, Зарічанка (Ukrainian) 

Zarichanka (Liantskorun by 1947), is a village in Chemerovtsy district of the Khmelnitskiy region. The village is located on the river Zhvanchik and the tributary Letavka.

In 1793 it was incoperated into the Russian Empire. By the late XIX – early XX century it was a shtetl in Kamenets district of Podolye province. In 1923-1928 it was a district center. According to the census of 2001 its population was 892 people.

In 2000 a local resident Ruslan Kozak (born in 1979) tried to write down the history of Liantskorun while he was studying in Kamenets-Podolskiy University. A lot of facts about the life of Jews from Zarechanka were mentioned in his work.

Beginning

The name Liantskorun appeared in the first half of the XVIII century when the family Liantskoronskiy owned the village and managed to elevate it to the status of a town and eventually organize fairs in it.

The Jewish community of Zarechanka was formed in the XVI century. The Jews who were almost completely eliminated during the Bohdan Khmelnitskiy uprising started to repopulate Ukrainian lands only after 1667 when the Truce of Andrusovo had been signed.

In the 1750s, the followers of  Jacob Frank (founder of the Frankivite sect)  lived in Zarechanka. When they had a meeting led by their founder, they were revealed. It was at night on January 27, 1756. The sectarians were arrested. The investigation was started by the rabbis from Sataniv, Smotrich and Liantskorun.  The Polish magnates  punished the Jews who had denounced the sectarians and offended the Frankist movement. Those Jews were flogged. Torah and Talmud books were taken to Kamenets-Podolskiy and burnt on the Trade square in public.

By the late XVIII century the east side of the town was inhabited by artisans. Then there was the Jewish houses grouped behind the river Zhvanchyk and next to them there was a square with the church on it.

In 1770, the tide of plague (famine) covered Liantskorun without any reason. Thus, in 1775, the amount of Jews living in the town decreased to 254 people though in 1765, there were 609 people, men and women. By 1811, the amount of Jews in Liantskorun hadn’t increased, there were 33 guild Jews, 164 peasants, and 104 male artisans.

In the second part of the 18th century the residents of Liantskorun managed to acquire the right to hold fairs in the town. This caused a quick development in trade and attracted  new Jewish residents  as well.  The exact number of Jews living in Liantskorun at this time is unknown, but there were 300 Jewish houses there in 1808. because of the Jews the town gradually became a center for trade, even rivaling Kamenets as a market town.

Big Synagoge in Liantskorun, photo by Zholtovskiy 1930:

In 1818, 358 peasants and 380 Jews lived in the shtetl.

In 1867, there were four synagogues and a Jewish cemetery in Zarechanka. The main occupation of the Jewish population was handicrafts.

In the 1880s, the shtetl belonged to a villager with the Russian origin Ivan Olexandrovich Baziuk. 712 Christian men and 733 women lived in his possession. Jews also lived there – 649 men and 666 women.

Another synagogue in Liantskorun:

In the late 19th century there was a cheder, and in 1892, Berka Bronstein was appointed rabbi. In 1911, “neleg” a Jewish Zionists’ group appears headed by I. Bronstein. In 1913, there were five synagogues.

In the 1880s, the shtetl was quite industrially developed.

48,2% out of 2,356 residents were Jews. People of this nationality had been engaged in craftsmanship for ages. Therefore, they made the shtetl rise economically.  Jews owned the brewery, the watermill, the towns only pharmacy, the district police quarters, and crafts production stores.

A Jew Ios Aranov was elected to be the village headman in 1884, Kisel Shmul-Beprikevich Dzektser was his assistant.

In the book by Naum Bernstein “Orinin: My Shtetl” Annie Gittleman is mentioned. She was born in 1910 in Liantskorun, got married with Vainstein from Orinin and emigrated to Canada. She had four sons.

In 1915, Zelman Melikhovich Shtelman was elected as the village headman in Liantskorun, Mendel Ideliovych Melman and Zus Abramovych Berman were his assistants, Yankel Khaskelevich Zimerman was in charge of collecting money.

I haven’t find information about Jewish pogrom in Orinin in 1917-1920.

After Revolution

On the ninth of September 1925, the Soviet government gave permission to form national village councils.

In 1926, a Jewish village council was organized. Israel Kaper was its head. There was the Jewish People’s Court in Zarechanka. The OZET department taught the Jews the foundations of agricultural works. The artisans’ and tailors’ unions were functioning at that time. There also was an agricultural community “Grain-grower”, which consisted of 24 families (110 people), they had cultivated 60 acres of land. Since. 1934 there was a Jewish collective farm named in honor of the XVIIth Congress of the Communist Party.

1,788 Jews lived in the village in this period.

During NEP (the New Economic Policy in the 1920s) 121 artisans got  permission to do their private business. This permission was given only till the 30th of September 1926. The majority of these artisans were Jewish tailors, milliners, hairdressers, cobblers, bakers, painters, carriers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, skinners, carpenters, soap-boilers.

In 1926, when NEP was almost over the Soviet government wanted to turn the Jews into farmers. From November 28 –  December 31 1925 33 Jewish families registered  to move to other districts for grain growing.

In 1925, the poor Jews got some help from organizations (landsmanshaften) in the USA which also financed the activity of the illegal heder.

In the 1920s, Zionist units “Ge-Khaluts” and “Foreyn” were functioning, the program “Ha-Poel ha-Tsair” was spread and the magazine “OSM” was published.

In 1925, children’s organizations “Yalde Tsion” and “Ha-Tsofe” were formed. A Jewish school with A village library and reading-room was opened. People could find books in the library in the Yiddish, Russian, and Ukrainian languages. Some educational programs and the amateur theatre were preformed there as well. People could visit different lectures.

In 1934, three village councils were in Liantskorun. Ukainian, Polish, and Jewish councils were united in one.

Before the war in 1939, 915 Jews lived here.

Holocaust

Zarichanka was captured by the Germans on the ninth of July 1941. There is some information that the local population tried to help the Jews but there is nothing to substantiate this fact. The market place was turned into the Ghetto. All of the Jewish population were gathered there.

In July 1942, at dawn, the executioners surrounded the shtetl and started breaking into Jewish houses and murder everyone they encountered. The victims of the killings were ordered to be thrown into three large pits dug where the market is nowadays and covered with soil. The cart driver charged with collecting the bodies was driven insane with the horrors he witnessed that day.

In the summer 1942, all the Jews moved to the Ghetto in Kamenets-Podolskiy and were killed together with the local ones.

The residents of Kugaievtsi village Vladimir and Yustiniia Marushchak, and Vladimir and Aleksandra Galaiko rescued an accountant from Liantskorun Mikhail Shukhgalter and four other Jews. They were named righteous gentiles among the nations in 1995.

On May 8, 2003, a memorial to the Jews murdered by the Nazis and their sympathizers was opened, funded by the Khmelnitskii Jewish community. The local residents, the students of a local school, the head of the Khmelnitskii region community council Semen Vaisblai, the Jewish community councillor Stepan Olshevskii, war veteran Aba Kaliner, former ghetto prisoner Tsilia Oifman who sponsored this memorial, and other guests laid flowers and remembered the dead.

 

After the War

I haven’t been able to find any information about the Jews who came back to the village after the War…

The Jewish cemetery was situated in the center of the village. It was destroyed in the 1950s-1960s. There is a park there now.

It is a fact that there were no Jews in village in 1980’s.

Ruslan Kozak take copies of the documents in Khmelnitskiy State Archive about next Jewish building in Lianskorun in 2000’s:

 

Famous Jews from Liantskorun

Mordhe Alperson (1867, Liantskorun, Podolye province – 1947, Mauricia, Argentina), a prose writer, a playwright. He tried himself in different professions. In 1891, he emigrated to Argentina with his family. There he was one of the organizers and founders of Jewish agricultural colony Mauricia. Alperson was fond of farming even when he was very old. He also printed the articles about the agricultural organizations in Jewish colonies.

Archive records

The archive documents concerning Liantskorun are kept in many archives of Ukraine. In 2000, Ruslan Kozak copied the plan of the synagogue and the mikveh in Khmelnitskiy archive.

In Kiev archive:

442/52/378: Case about the eviction of Jewish smugglers with their families from Liantskorun. 1873-1875. The surnames mentioned are Volko Kiderman, Gershko and Ayzik Gubermans, Srul Groysberg, Ide Leyb Shmukler, Fishel Gitelman, Ios Gitelman (Kushnir), Srul Zherder, Faybish Charkovskiy, Volko Shurinets (Kiderman) with his family has a house in Zbrizh.

As a result, 40 Jews together with their families were evicted from Liantskorun.

442/183/89: a complaint of the members of the Jewish community in Liantskorun A.German and Ts. Yulius against a local policeman. 1869.

The following surnames are also mentioned: Alter Berman, Itsko Yusym, Zavel Fingel, Mot Ziat’tser, Leybko Gelman, Yios Guberman, Yankel Galsbarg, Mortko Nudelman, Moshko Groysberg, Srul Fingerman, Shlioma Royzentul, Abramko Fishman, Ide Bekman, Alter Fingerman, Shulim Zambel Waserman, Ide Leyb Shmukler, Fishel Fishman, Zus Kliger…

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