NEPOLOKIVTSI

Nepolocauti  was built in the 15th century. At the beginning it was part of the historical region of Bucovina Moldova Principality. The first documentary  dates from 12 May 1425.

In January 1775, following the  military conflict between Turkey and Russia (1768-1774), the Habsburg Empire (now Austria) received a part of Moldova's territory, a territory known as Bukovina.  The area was part of the duchy Nepolocauti Bukovina, ruled by the Austrian part of the Cozmeni district .
At the beginning of Austrian rule the main income was from  agriculture and animal husbandry and from crafts and trade that were in the hands of Armenians and Jews. Buildings were usually made of clay and straw.

In 1883 the first school was built.
Between 1866-1868 a railway line was built from Nepolocauti Bukovina  until Itcani (now a district of the city of Suceava), which connected  Lvov and Lemberg (Galicia) to Czernowitz  and to Suceava. On the 7 July 1898 was opened the new local railway line  Nepolokoutz-Wiznitz . The train station was built in 1898.

Following the annexation of the northern Bukovina by Romania on 27 November 1918, the village was part of Romania in Chernauti county.
In the interwar period it was given the name of Grigore Ghica Voda, in honor of the Moldavian Prince Grigore III Ghica  who opposed the disposal of Bukovina by Austria in 1775 and was killed two years later by the Turks.
Being on the border berween Poland and the Kingdom of Romania it was the railway border point between Romania and the east, and Poland and the west, for the trains that ran on the Bucharest - Chernivtsi  - Polish border line (Name of the train station during the romanian time was "Grigore Ghica Voda").

During the romanian period  started new enterprise: woodworking factory, bakery, flavoring factory, the gravel-sand pit and others.

Following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939), Northern Bukovina was annexed by the USSR on 28 June 1940. It was given back by the Germans to Romania during 1941-1944. In 1944 Northern Bukovina was reoccupied by the USSR  and integrated into the Ukrainian SSR component. In 1968, it received the status of urban settlement (town).
Since  the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it belongs to Ukraine.

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  Article about Nepolokivtsi
(from about 1885)
 from  http://dir.icm.edu.pl/pl/Slownik_geograficzny/Tom_VII/103
   (Geographical Dictionary of the Polish Kingdom and other Slavic countries  Volume VII)
Translated by Anna Crichton

"Niepolokowce,
ger[man]. Nepolokoutz, rus[sian]. Nepolokiwci, ?, Kocman district, on the left bank of the 
river Prut. On the east it joins to the Zopen community, on the north-east, it meets Oszechlib and Iwankowiec, on the west, Oroszen.
On the south the Prut creates a three kilometre border with Berbestie community. 
Railway station Lwow-Czerniowiec-Jaska. 
Two tracks/roads cut across the village: one leading from Kocman to Berbestie and Waszkowiec, from North-East to South-west; 
the other track from Sniatyn through Berhomet to Czerniawiec. 
The elevation at the cutting point of the two tracks is 202m (above sea level).  
In the village there are numerous ponds.  The area is 1156 hectares, 75 acres, 96 square meters, 
205 houses, 946 inhabitants, that is, 481 men and 465 women (in 1869).  
In 1880 there were 1210 inhabitants. There is an orthodox church, Greek-Nieunicki, of timber, under the Patronage of Mary, 
built in 1873-1874 with the efforts/endeavour of co-owners Jan, Michal and Wasyl Teutul and the community.  
The commune has 202 families, in other words, 761 souls, that is, 383 men and 378 women. 
There are 90 children required to attend school, that is, 43 boys and 47 girls.  There are 50 in the local one-class school,
that is 30 boys and 20 girls (1885). 
Regarding the other congregations, there is a Latin and a Greek-catholic one and they belong to Kocman.  
There are 36 Roman-Catholic souls.  Local Station, District Court and  Taxation office are in Kocman.  
Transport on the Prut.  Proprietors are Jan, Samuel, Michal and Wasyl Tautul, and also Olga Hermann

Nepolokivtsi today:

•       Town information see in:  http://gromady.cv.ua/km/nepolokivtsi/ (in Ukrainian, use Google translation)
•       Train to / from Nepolokivtsi timetable and passenger building photo in Railwayz.info for railway line: Lviv Railways , Ivano-Frankivsk Directorate, line   Kolomyya-Chernivtsi-North , 242 km (in Ukrainian, use Google translation). 
  

New Ukrainian memorial  for WW2 casualties in Nepolokivtsi, 2010.

History of the Jewish Community:

There is not enough information about the start of the Jewish community in Nepolokivtsi.
What we know is that most of the community members that lived there during the 19th century were farmers; some were craftsmen and merchants. 
The community developed around the turn of the 19th century, when the train line to Czernowitz (east) and Galicia-Poland (west) was completed;
later the line to Wiznitz (south) was built, which made Nepolokivtsi an important train station and a border crossing post.
Being situated near the Pruth River and on a railway line, brought to the development of the wood trade and gave opportunity for new Jewish families to settle there. A new "modern" none-agriculture community was established in the train-station section.  The wood trade was a good profession before and during WW1.
Later the demand for wood declined.
It is estimated that about 300 Jews lived in Nepolokivtsi in the1920s-1930s, most of them in farms in the village and about 15 families in the train station neighbourhood, where they had their own Minian.
(See Nepolokautz 1929 Business Directory).
Nepolokivtsi was one of the Hachscharoth (training in agriculture) locations of the Zionist Movements in Europe during the 1920s - 1930s.

Copyright © בית לוחמי הגטאות Ghetto Fighters House Archives
Mordechai Fuerman - Reshafi, an emissary from Palestine,
meeting with the steering committee of the pioneering training commune (kibbutz hachshara) in Nepolokovtsy (Nepolcauti).
In the photo: Reshafi is seated in the middle.
The hachshara members belonged to the Po'alei Zion movement. Photographed in 1934.

Hugo Gold, in "History of Jews in Bukowina", mentions a station of the Czernowitz - Palestine Office in Nepolokoutz, where Jewish immigrants from Poland passed on their way to Palestine. See the following 3 paragraphs from this book:

…..In the years 1933/1936 the Polish transit aliyah reached the number of 50,000 olim. Twice a month at that time special trains went from Warsaw via Sniatyn and Nepolkoutz to Constanza and for all these transports the Czernowitz Palestine office intervened at the customs stations, at luggage control and in document control…

…A considerable part of the Palestine emigration from Bukovina consisted of young Chalutzim, among whom there were many who came from middle class backgrounds and who were driven by idealism to do pioneer work in Eretz Israel. Several organizations were concerned with the nurturing of the Bukovina Chalutz movement: The Merkas Hechlutz, the Czernowitz Palestine office, the organization Jedidej Hechhaluz, the Bukovina Zionist State Committee, the Zionist Socialist Party Zaire Zion (Hitachduth), the Jewish Socialist Party Poale Zion and in later years also the other Zionist Parties. In the early years one was mainly concerned about providing work and room and board mostly in worker's kitchens as well as for travel papers which were only provided in part by the Joint. Later a Hachschara fund was established and a committee which consisted of representatives of the above named organizations was established to provide funds for the training and physical needs of the Chalutz youth. Work groups were formed to work on private estates in Bukovina in Negostina, Sadagura, Hermenhof and Nepolokoutz according to a report from April 1927. For about 8 to 9 months from April to October or November one worked in farming and in the winter some were occupied in wood cutting. The organizations responsible for Chalutz work in Bukovina were in contact with the All Romanian Chalutz and thus Bukovina youth worked on farms owned by the Chalutz movement in Romania - as for example in the above named report of April 1927 - in Biliceni and Iasi. In the All Romanian Board of Trustees conference for Chalutz work in Romania in February, 1928 Prof. Julian Silberbusch, Josef Wiznitzer, Dr. Max Diamant, Dr. Isidor Kottlar and Nathan Horowitz were delegated as agriculture experts by the Bukovina Jedidej Hechaluz and the Bukovina Zionist State Organization.

In the villages, Jewish farmers gradually disappeared. They took up professions in the cities. In 1873, there was only one Jewish village, Terescheny, which was previously a Tartar colony, where there were 50 Jewish farm families.

In the region of Nepolokoutz there were many Jewish tenant farmers. Also scattered throughout Bukovina there were Jewish landowners who worked farms of 1 to 2 Acre.

Since 1848, the Jews left farming because they saw no possibilities of success in that endeavor because of the unfavorable rules for leasing and parceling out the land. They were lured to the cities where they thought it would be possible to find work

In Czernowitz, Betar published a weekly newspaper, “The Jewish World,” directed by Jakob Schieber and edited by H. Fekler. The Betarists [I've taken the liberty of coining this word to designate Betar members] were not afraid, in the interest of propaganda, to sell the paper in public places. The meeting of the state organization in 1931 was attended by representatives of most of the local organizations.

Almost every year, summer camps were held for the members, the first one being held in 1928 in Wizenka. There as also in Wiznitz, Lopuschna, Ribnia and other locations, summer meetings were organized at which also non-Bukovina natives attended. Among others, a camp was led by Eisik Remba (publisher of the "Cheruth") in 1928 in his capacity as general secretary of the main leadership (Schilton Betar). Arie Disenczik (Cheif editor of "Maariv")  was also a delegate of the Schilton. Many went to Romania as teachers, among others Arie Ben Elieser (the vice chairman of the Knesset). In Czernowitz a Hebrew seminar was started where many members from Bessarabia, who otherwise would have been caught up by the Communist stream received a thorough Zionist education. All the instruction was intended to prepare the participants for life in Eretz Israel. For that reason, Hachscharoth (training in agriculture) was created in Zastavna (leader of the farm was David Schuster), Kuczurmik, Doroschoutz, moreover in Nepolokoutz, Luzan and in Storozynetz on the estates of estate owners Ornstein and Baron Flondor. When Jabotinsky stayed in Bukovina he visited several Hachscharoth.

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Grigore Ghica Voda border crossing stamp 20 Jul 1929 (Left, No 13733)