Shtetl: Kovel, Ukraine

Other alternate names: Kowel [Polish], Kavele, Kovl [Yiddish], Kovli



Latitude 51°13´, Longitude 24°42´





The market square. (From the Kovel Yizkor book, 1957 edition)

"They would hear the foreign tongue on market day, when the farmers from the nearby villages would gather, blocking the streets of the city with their carts loaded with wood and merchandise. The Jewish peddlers and the housewives would walk between the wagons, inspecting the chickens and scouting out goods, handling everything as if they'd already bought it. The farmers leave their womenfolk sitting in the wagons and go off to wander through the marketplace and stopping to peddle their wares in the stores." From the "The Character of Kovel"

Background Information

• History   (Updated 13 January 2013 with additional information on the 1942 extermination of the Jews of Kovel)
  

  The village Kavele, as it was even called in later times by Yiddish speakers, was known since the beginning of the 14th century as a crossroads on the way from Lithuania to Ruthenia, the lands populated by eastern Slavic peoples. Kovel obtained its status as a city in 1518. It was in the district of Volhynia, then part of the Duchy of Lithuania which was establishing itself as a dominant power among the principalities that had been part of the Kievan Rus' dynasty. During the next century, the Jewish community fared reasonably well as far as their rights and economic influence. But tensions from economic competition, anti-Semitism and crusades against heretics led to worsening conditions in the 1600s with complaints by Kovel burghers to the king and, in 1648, the Cossack-led Chmielnicki massacres. The late 19th and 20th century saw the growth of a vibrant Jewish community - economically, politically and intellectually - but the rapid succession of World War I, the Bolshevik-Polish war and becoming part of a reconstituted Poland, with its waves of virulent anti-Semitism, had devastating effects. The Soviet occupation in 1939 effectively ended Jewish community life, and the occupation by the Nazis which quickly followed, wiped out the Jews of Kovel. The anguish of many of those who lost their lives was recorded in nearly 100 pencil-written notes on the walls of the city's Great Synagogues, lamenting the dead, asking remembrance and calling for vengeance on the Germans. (Click Here for more.)

• Bibliography (Updated 3 February, 2010)
• The Last Notes of Those Who Died Written on the Walls of the Great Synagogue (Updated 7 May 2011)
• Kovel's History from City's Official Website

Maps

• View Kovel via Mapquest
• View Kovel via Maplandia (offers satellite views)
• Late 18th century map titled in old Russian "Map of Kovel Town." The legend in the lower left notes Catholic and Orthodox churches, and the Jewish school and cemetery.
• Map showing Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 1561-1629, under whose rule Kovel had been since the 14th century.
• Map showing Kovel during the three partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795)
• The Battle of Kowel between Polish and Bolshevik forces, 1920 (click on map to magnify it).
• Layout of the city from the Pinkas Kovel.
• Soviet topographic map of Kovel
• Street Map of Modern Kovel
  
  

Pictures

• Historical Photos of Kovel - Album One
  
  
• Historical Photos of Kovel - Album Two   (Updated 14 August 2009)
  
  
• Historical Photos of Kovel from the Kovel Yizkor Book (1957) - Album Three   (Updated 16 February 2009, three photos added)
  
  
• Historical Photos of Kovel from the Pinkes Kovel (1951) - Album Four   (Updated 18 November 2010)
  
  
• Historical Photos of Kovel - Album Five  
  
  
• Contemporary Photos of Kovel - Album Six  (Updated 20 October 2012)
  
  
• Picasa Page Collection of "Photos by Haya" showing the Great Synagogue and its conversion to a textile factory
  
  

Kovel Links

• Help Translate the Kovel Memorial Book into English The JewishGen Yizkor Project has undertaken an effort to translate the Pinkes Kovel into English. If you want to help, you can do so by clicking on this link.
  
  
• English Translation of the Kovel Yizkor Book  (Updated 13 January 2013 with new chapters, The Kovel Forest, Yosef Avrekh and From the Writings of Yosef Avrekh).
  
  
• Kovel Yizkor Book in Hebrew  (Access Book through the "Select Community" Index).
  
  
• Table of Contents for the 1951 Edition of the Pinkes Kovel (added 30 December 2010)
  
  
• Name Index of Individuals from Kovel  (updated 1 June 2012) This is an index of names, and the sources in which they were found, for individuals mentioned on this site. This latest update reflects names culled from new translations of the Kovel Yizkor book.
  
  
• List of Deceased from Memorial Book for former residents of Kowel (Published in Buenos Aires, 1951)
  
  
• Collection of Oral Histories and Memoirs by Those Who Lived in Kovel (updated 28 April 2011)
  
  
• The Cemetery at Kovel (Updated 18 November 2012)
  
  
• Wikipedia Kovel site
  
  
• The Israeli Organization of The Jews of Kovel and Its Surroundings Mostly in Hebrew.
  
  
• 1929 Business Directory for Kowel Page One  Page Two  Page Three  Page Four  (Updated 1 October 2010)
  
  
• JewishEncyclopedia.com Entry on Kovel
  
  
• JewishGen's Ukraine SIG
  
  
• A General History of Jews in the Ukraine from the 4th Century B.C. to the 1930s
  
  



Memoirs and Family Stories

This section is a work in progress. Please contact me if you want your family stories included here.


• The Story of the Kimmel Family  (Updated 20 November 2010, at bottom, with information on some of those listed in the 1951 Pinkes Kovel).
  
  

  My Kimmel ancestors started with Simcha Benjamin (Bunim) Kimmel. He was born sometime before 1829 in Russia (and died around 1900) and had two sons, Itzhak David Kimmel and Beryl Wolf. Both immigrated to New York, Itzhak David in 1901 when he was 36 while brother Beryl Wolf, about 54, followed in May, 1906. The lines of the family tracing to David and Beryl both lived in Brooklyn - in the same 71 square miles - but as years passed, they became unaware the other existed. I did not learn that until 2006 when I connected through JewishGen with fellow researcher Dov Rubin, Beryl's grandson, who was able to make the connection when he asked about a blurry photo he had found that turned out to be my great-grandfather. (Click Here for more.)

• Descendant Chart of the Kimmel-Rubin Families
  
  
• Descendant Chart of the Turkenitz (Turkenitch)/Kimmel/Stern Families
  
  
• Film documentary of the Jews of Kovel During the Shoah Hava Buchwald and filmmaker Elie Roubah have traveled to Israel and Kovel to interview the last Jewish witnesses as well as Ukrainian witnesses to the fate of Kovel Jews during the Holocaust. The project is also researching the Czimermann and Rozenblat families of Kovel. If you have information or knowledge of surviving witnesses to assist this project, contact Hava Buchwald
  
  
• The Josiowicz Family
  
  
• The Weisbrot (Wajsbrot) Family
  
  

Searchable Databases

Would you like to connect with others researching Kovel? Click the button to search the JewishGen Family Finder database.




for any surname or town.
• of Shoah Victims' Names for Kovel.

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Compiled by Bruce Drake Updated 13 January 2013 Copyright © 2009 Bruce Drake

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