Velyki Mezhyrichi

Rivne district, Rivne region

Sources:
- Jewish encyclopedia of Brockhaus & Efron;
- Russian Jewish encyclopedia. Translated from Russian by Eugene Snaider;
- The All South-Western Territory: reference and address book of the Kyiv, Podolsk and Volyn provinces. Printing house L.M. Fish and P.E. Wolfson, 1913;
- A.I. Kruglov, "Velykiye Mezhyrichi", [in:] I.A. Altman (ed.), Holokost na tieritorii SSSR, Moscow 2009

Photo:
- European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative. Velyki Mezhyrichi Jewish Cemetery;
- Biblioteka Narodowa Polona. Międzyrzec Korecki
- Petro Vlasenko, Serhiy LS, Serhiy Kachanov. Wikipedia, Velyki Mezhyrichi
- Serhiy Ventseslavskyy. Wikipedia, Stetsky Palace inside
- Mezhiritch-Wolyn; in memory of the Jewish community. Editor: Benzion Hayyim Ayalon-Baranick. Tel Aviv, 1955

Rivne region - list of settlements and location of objects

Velyki Mezhyrichi, 2024

Velyki (Great) Mezhyrichi (ukr. Великі Межиричі, rus. Великие Межиричи; until 1965 - Mezhyrichi), known since 1190. From 1590 - the city. Since 1793 - as part of the Russian Empire. In the 19th - early 20th centuries - the township of Mezhyrichi of Rivne district of the Volyn province. In 1919–39 - as part of Poland, in 1939–91 - the Ukrainian SSR.

In 1784, 295 Jews lived in Mezhyrichi,
in 1847 - 1808,
in 1897 - 2107 (68%),
In 1921 - 1743 Jews (72.6%).


Jewish cemetery in Velyki Mezhyrichi, 2019	Memorial to Shoah victims in the cemetery, 2014

Velyki Mezhyrichi in the 1913 reference book

Jews settled in Mezhyrichi in the middle of the 16th century.
In 1761–72 in Mezhyrichi lived Dov-Ber, Magid from Mezhirich - the successor of the founder of Hasidism Baal Shem Tov.

In 1878–91, the Trisk Hasid Efroim Averbach (1857–?) was a rabbi in Mezhyrichi. In the 1910s, the rabbi was Osher Zilberman.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there are 5 synagogues in Mezhyrichi .
In 1908, a school was opened with teaching in Hebrew.

In 1913, Jews owned all 5 wood warehouses and all 97 shops (excluding only 1 shop, where non-Jews traded non-kosher meat). The Jew Gluzbandt rented an only mill.
The Jew Abram Vulis was one of the two doctors in the township.

In 1918, a detachment of self-defense was created.
In August 1919, a pogrom occurred in Mezhyrichi.

In the 1920s and 1930s, departments of various Jewish parties and organzations operated in the township.
In 1930, the "Or Toyre" school was opened.


Palace of Stetsky in Mexhyrichi, 2019	Ceiling in the palace	Palace in Mezhyrichi on the drawing of Napoleon Orda, 19 century

In summer 1941, the township was occupied by the German army. At first, Mezhyrichi was administered by the war headquarter, and, from September 1941, German civil administration took over the administration. Mezhyrichi was included to the Rivne District (Gebiet), whose commissioner was Regierungsrat Beer. There was a German gendarmerie station in the town, as well as a Ukrainian police headquarters. Extermination operations against Jews were carried out by the SD unit from Rivne with the participation of the German gendarmerie and the Ukrainian police. Shortly after the occupation began, anti-Semitic Ukrainian nationalists organised a pogrom, during which many Jewish houses were looted, beatings and rapes took place.

In 1941, a Judenrat was set up in Mezhyrichi. The Nazis introduced anti-Jewish regulations: Jews were ordered to wear armbands with a blue Star of David, Jews were sent to hard labour without the right to remuneration, they were forbidden to leave the town, they were also exposed to systematic looting and beatings by Ukrainian police.

On 22 May 1942, an "Operation" was carried out in the village, during which an SD unit from Rivne, with the participation of the German gendarmerie and Ukrainian police, shot about 1,600 people of Jewish origin. A platoon of the 1st Company of the Reserve Police Battalion 33 also participated in the "Operation".

Shortly after the second "Operation" had been carried out, a ghetto was established in Mezhyrichi, to which Jews from the surrounding villages were resettled. The ghetto was liquidated on 26 September 1942. On that day, about 1,500 Jews were shot.


Tabl on the memorial	Tombstone in the cemetery, 2019


Synagogue in Mezhyrichi, 1933	The synagogue was built in 1713, destroyed in 1944

Church of St.Anthony in Mexhyrichi, 2005