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Archaeological discoveries have been made in the Ruzhin area of stone tools & carvings, dating to 5000 BCE. This was termed the “Trypillian Culture”. The Nomadic Scythians controlled the area from approximately 500-300 BCE, replaced by the Sarmatians, who were based on the western banks of the Dniester River. Later, a Hellenistic “Antiv” Culture built a defensive wall near Ruzhin, and extended its territorial reach to all the area between the Dniester & Dnieper Rivers. Traces of this culture have been found with discoveries of coins, glassware, and ceramics, which date up to the Fifth century CE. A 12th-13th century cross was found in Ruzhin, attesting to the arrival of Christianity in the area. Sherbiv (as Ruzhin was then known) was the home of a Mongol Khan, along with his 13 slaves.
Ruzhin’s history is that of the Ukraine:
Polish noblemen began to wield influence in the Western Ukraine. In 1596, one – Count Kirik Ruzhinsky – changed the name of the town from Sherbiv to Ruzhin. In 1608, Kirik’s brother Adam aided Dmitri – a false pretender to the throne in Moscow – to raise an army which consisted of a thousand horsemen. To raise the funds, he leased some of his lands, and mortgaged the town of Ruzhin to Kristof Kevlitch. With the defeat of Dimitri’s revolt by the Romanovs, the Ruzhinsky properties fell into disarray.
In the mid-17th century, a cathedral was built in nearby Belilovka – and Chmielnitski’s Cossacks marched through Ruzhin for the first time on December 1648. The land was subsequently partitioned & granted to Cossack officers. Forests were cleared for farming – and life became peaceful. By 1651, Ruzhin was prospering. With a peace treaty signed between Russia-Ukraine and Poland in 1667, lands including Ruzhin reverted to Polish control. Ruzhin was controlled soon after by Count Vishnievetsky.
In 1736, the local manager or Pavolich & Ruzhin had 35 Jewish citizens killed, and their properties, valued at 180,000 zlotys, were confiscated. The first burials in Ruzhin’s Jewish cemetery are thought to date to 1776.
It was at this time, that Ruzhin became one of the most important centers of Hassidic Jewry. As one can witness simply by searching Ruzhin on the internet, it is most famous for the presence & establishment of the “royal court” of a very important & legendary Hassidic leader. Rabbi Israel Friedman (1796-1850) was the great-grandson of the Maggid of Mezritch, the chief disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism. Rabbi Friedman, commonly known – even today – as the Heilige (Holy) Ruzhiner, established Ruzhin as a place of pilgrimage to others, seeking deeper spiritual understanding. He was famous for his luxurious lifestyle – which he humbly espoused was an honor to the glory of the Torah. Ruzhin became one of the most important centers of Jewish learning in the world. He sponsored the founding of one of the most important synagogues in Jerusalem – which was later named after him: Tiferes Yisrael. The impressive dome was donated by Emperor Franz-Josef of Austria, who visited the synagogue on his way to the 1869 dedication of the Suez Canal.
In 1838, following accusations of having had informers murdered, the czar himself issued orders for the Rebbe’s arrest. He spent 22 months in a Kiev dungeon, before spending six more months in a prison in Kamenitz. He was released, without ever being charged or tried, on Shushan Purim. Hearing that the czar had ordered his re-arrest, the Rebbe fled to Kishinev (Moldova), then to Iasi (Romania), then Austria, and then re-settled in Sadgora (Bukovina-Ukraine), where he founded a large synagogue and re-established his “court”. He died ten years later. Through his six sons, he founded a Hassidic dynasty which flourishes to this day. Click this link for a copy of the authoritative book on the Ruzhiner Hassidic philosophy & dynasty.
Click here & close your eyes. Let Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach take you back to the Ruzhiner Rebbe’s tisch (table) in Ruzhin…170 years ago.
Meanwhile, the Catholic cathedral had been built in Ruzhin, and in 1845 a six-bed hospital was added to its holdings. The fabric industry, with the establishment of two factories, became a cornerstone of commerce in the town. A leather factory, owned by August Wolf, started operations in 1862. Subsequently, brick factories, liquor distilleries, oil processing plants & steam-powered mills sprung up throughout Ruzhin; as did a post office, another hospital, an Orthodox church & a synagogue. By 1863, the town’s population totaled 2,663 souls – most of which were Jews. A winery was leased to Yankel Shapiro in 1880 & managed by Shia Klatchny. The lease passed to Yankel’s son, Abram, in 1896 who also leased a steam-powered grist mill. The sugar factory, in nearby Toporakh, was owned by Moshe Isayevich Gorovitz & run by his manager, Yosef Franzovich Lissel. A brewery was built, as was a 72-bed hospital, which catered almost exclusively to the Jewish community. The merchants of Ruzhin were known for their highly-valued horses, which were brought to nearby Berdichev on market days. In 1890, Ruzhin was administered by Anton Ossipovich Zlotinsky. In 1897, of a total population of 5,016 people, the Jewish community numbered 3,599.
In 1905, the first rumblings of what would become the Bolshevik Revolution were heard in Ruzhin. Young Jewish workers in Ruzhin, associated with The Bund, led by S. Ostrovsky distributed Socialist publications & called for strikes. In October of that year, several strikers (S. Ostrovsky, Y. Mogilevsky, L. Pavalotsky, S. Trusevich & V. Urinova-Rabinovich) were arrested & sentenced to prison terms in a distant gulag in in Siberia. With some finagling, their parents arranged that they were to be allowed to go abroad for three years; under threat of being returned to the gulag, should they return before the end of the term. However, with the czar wildly claiming that 90% of the revolutionaries were Jews, pogroms swept the Russian Empire – notably in Ukraine & Bessarabia (Moldova). Pogroms, led by Cossacks – scheduled for the Monday after the coming Orthodox Easter - tore through Jewish communities across the Empire: killing, raping & looting Jews in scattered towns & villages. In Ruzhin, Cossacks entered the heder, violently throwing the students into the street.
Ukrainians were educated in state-run schools; Jews in heders and yeshivas; and Poles in clandestine Polish schools (in neighboring Balamutivka). The town, by 1908, had established a theatre, cinema and its own electric power station.
With the onset of World War I, the army mobilized many citizens – with provisions & horses being commandeered for the war effort. Following a brief period of Ukrainian independence (1916-18), the Germans marched into Ruzhin on February 27, 1918. They left one week after the Armistice, on November 18, 1918.
In a 1919 pogrom, Jews were robbed and beaten, and a large tribute was exacted from the community.*
Throughout the 1920’s & 1930’s, Josef Stalin’s Bolshevik government & troops called for provisions from the Ukraine, the “bread-basket of the Europe”. Under this “New Economic Policy”, the peasantry’s produce was harvested, through mandatory quotas, only to be shipped to the population centers of Moscow, St. Petersburg (known then as Leningrad), etc. During this period, known today as the “Ukrainian Famine” of 1932-33, between 6-7 million Ukrainians were starved to death.
Many strikes against this policy shook Ruzhin. A top-secret report by the NKVD (precursor to the KGB) entitled “Counter-Revolutionary Activities in Ruzhin District” reported that 70% of Ruzhin & Balamutivka’s 543 farmers had been grouped into a kolkhoz (a collective) & that there was a marked increase of “banditism”, as people stole & scrounged for anything to eat.
During this period, cannibalism was witnessed in various places throughout the Ukraine, among them, the Ruzhin District. By 1939, the Jewish community dropped to 1,108 people.*
WWII & the Shoah: the End of Jewish Life, and Lives, in Ruzhin
The Germans, violating their own treaty with the USSR (the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement”), invaded the Soviet Union. On July 17, 1941, the German army seized Ruzhin, intending to preserve the kolkhoz system – merely diverting the collected produce from its intended destination in Moscow to its own warehouses. All craftsmen were expected to contribute to the German Army. Not only were provisions demanded (milk, foodstuffs, meat & warm clothing), but also an annual head tax of 200 rubles was imposed on the town. Resistance would be severely punished.
The Germans & local Ukrainian policeman (“Polizei”) killed the Jews of Ruzhin in many brutal stages. In a forest nearby, are three mass graves (killings occurred on September 10, 1941), marked today by fencing & a plaque (Photos 1, 2 and 3). There is one mass grave, sanctified by an obelisk-shaped monument (Photos 1 and 2), which marks the large mass grave – holding the slain remnant of the Jewish community of Ruzhin who perished on May 1, 1942. This monument & those in the forest were constructed by a group of Ruzhiners after the war. To read the story of the heavy-hearted organization & construction of the monuments at the mass graves, click here.
Supposedly, another smaller mass grave exists – whose location is still a mystery – but may be close to the 3 mass graves, in the forest. The most detailed account of this massacre is found in the Soviet post-war military report (Prepare yourself, then click here).
To read the testimony (Yad Vashem O33/1149, translated from Yiddish) of a survivor of Ruzhin, Tsipora Duchovna, about the killings of May 1, 1942: Click here
The Germans organized local policemen, termed “Polizei” to carry out the killings of the Jews. One group, the “Oum” was led by Kostu Stepan Michalavich. The largest group of Polizei was led by former Chief of Police Yosef Rodenko. While other members of these killing squads were hanged by the Soviets after the war, Rodenko was only arrested in the 1970’s & died in prison, awaiting trial. The Red Army began to push the Germans out of the Ruzhin area on December 24, 1943.
As far as Jewish history is concerned, the sanctification of the mass graves is the last chapter of a once glorious Jewish community of Ruzhin.
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Much of this history was taken from: Gennady Makhorin’s Ruzhin’s History: Tales & Documents, published in Ukrainian, by Volin Publishing, Zhitomir, 2000,
* excerpts from The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before & During the Holocaust, Volume II, page 1107; Spector, Samuel: NY University Press, NY. 2001.