also known as: Dolha (HU), Dovhé (CZ), Dolgoye (RU)
48°22' N / 23°17' E
~ Introduction ~
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Dovhe
was part of the Kingdom of Hungary (11th century - 1920 and 1938-1944) with the name of Dolha
in Máramaros megye (county), next part of Czechoslovakia (1920-1938) with the name of Dovhé
in Podkarpatská Rus (Sub-Carpathia), then part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1945-1991) with the name of Dolgoye
and, since 1991, known as Dovhe, in the Irshavsky (Irshavs'kyy) rayon (district) of Zakarpats'ka oblast (county) of Ukraine.
Other spellings/names for Dovhe are Dolhé, Delha, Doha and Priborzhavskoye.
Dovhe is located about 13 miles N of Khust (Huszt) and 11 miles ENE of Irshava (Ilosva).
Jews probably settled in Dovhe in the late in the 18th century.
In 1830, the Jewish population was 22.
By 1880, the Jewish population was 113 (of a total population of 1,315).
In 1930, during the Czechoslovakian period, the Jewish population rose to 462. Dolha had two elementary schools a Ruthenian and Czech. Jewish families did not send their sons to these secular schools, instead they enrolled them Cheder to pursue religious studies.
Because Dolha served as a crossroad for the smaller villages nearby and branched out in three directions toward the cities of Khust (Huszt), Berehove (Beregszász) and Svalyava (Szolyva), Dolha became significant to the local population in its early development because it yielded access to these cities.
By 1941, the Jewish population was 531 comprising 110 families.
Among the Jewish breadwinners were families that earned their livelihoods engaged in small-scale farming and later opened small shops to serve the needs of the local gentile inhabitants. The rich forests surrounding Dolha enabled Jews to work as lumber contractors for the railroad industry, which manufactured lumber for railroad tracks. Later a small lumber factory was built in Dolha where the cutting of oak trees was performed. Jews were also employed at a local steel-rolling plant.
With the Hungarian occupation of Dovhe in March, 1939, Jews were persecuted and pushed out of their occupations. In 1941, dozens of Jews from Dovhe were drafted into forced labor battalions and others were drafted for service on the Eastern front, where most died.
In early 1941, a number of Jewish families without Hungarian citizenship were expelled to Nazi occupied Ukrainian territory, to Kamenets-Podolski, and murdered there.
On 29 April 1944, Hungarian gendarmes forced the entire Jewish population of Dolha out of their homes and shipped them to the ghetto in Beregszász (Berehove), clustered together with others in a brick factory. Conditions were indeed indescribable, sanitation was poor and food was scarce. Then on 15 May 1944, the entire ghetto was led like sheep by armed Hungarian gendarmes, who packed them into cattle wagons and locked them in. At that time the Jews were unaware of the existence of the Auschwitz concentration camp and crematorium, to which they were taken after a three-day journey under indescribably inhumane conditions. By 18 May 1944, the entire Dolha community, except those destined to work from the selection process, perished in Auschwitz.
A great many of the Jews from Dovhe were murdered in Auschwitz and a few survivors returned to establish new homes under Soviet rule. Until 1975, a few Jewish families remained there.
In 2001, Dovhe had about 6,790 inhabitants and not a solitary Jew dwells in this erstwhile-thriving Jewish town, having eventually settled elsewhere. All Dolha survivors are now living abroad, primarily in Israel and in the United States. The only Jewish remnant of Dolha is, the Jewish cemetery, which still remains intact.
Sources (portions): Sidney (Zalman) SCHWIMMER, Israel The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, (2001), p. 327
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Created and Compiled by: Marshall J. KATZ, USA with assistance from
Leya ARONSON, Canada
Alik FRIEDMAN, Israel
Debbi KORMAN, USA
M. Y. EHRENREICH, USA
Nikoli KATZ, USA
Nevek-Klarsfeld
Amos Israel ZEZMER, France
and the following:
JewishGen members/descendants and
contributors of Dovhe Jewish families:
David GOLD, USA
Randall KLEIN, USA
Sidney (Zalman) SCHWIMMER, Israel
Bernard WEISS, Australia
Helen WEISZ, USA
below for pronunciation. )
