A Jewish community existed in Bolekhiv since its establishment by Nicholas Gydzincki. The town founder proclaimed equal rights to the three ethnic groups living there, Jews, Polish Catholics and Ruthenians, and this was confirmed by Sigismund III Vasa, the king of the new Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formerly crown prince of Poland, the grand duke of Lithuania, and later to become king of Sweden. The town was a privately owned town, and the changes of ownership or inheritance had a strong impact on all the residents of the town, especially the Jews. In 1670, after the Tatars invaded and burnt the town down, the town owner gave the Jews a large loan to rebuild. Towards the middle of the 19th century there was much tension between the Jews and the other ethnicities. A Hassidic rebbe, Rabbi Shneibalg, "the Rebbe of Bolechov", had a large Hassidic court in the town. By 1890, seventy-five percent of the population of Bolekhiv was Jewish. Atrocities began in 1935, by a hostile government and population, and escalated after the German conquest in 1941. By 1940 the Jewish population of Bolekhiv reached about 3,000. On 28 and 29 October 1941, four months after capturing the town, the German police carried out a first Aktion in Bolekhiv, which included a list of 1,000 of the Jewish rabbis, leaders, doctors and richer people, who were tortured for two days, and then shot in a nearby forest, some buried alive. In 1941 and 1942 thousands of Jews were added to the population, from the surrounding towns. About a year later, 3 to 5 September 1942, the Germans planned a second Aktion. The Jews were warned in advance by a member of their Judenrat who was in a nearby town, but many of the localUkrainians began a murder spree in the preceding afternoon, targeting mainly children, in horrific acts of barbarity. The Germans joined in the action, and continued to grab people from their houses or hiding places. About 1,500 Jews were murdered, 600-700 of them children, and an additional 2,000 Jews were sent to the Belzec death camp where most were subsequently murdered. Other Aktions continued into 1943 when the surviving 900 Jews, working in makeshift "work groups", were marched to the cemetery nearby, in groups of 100 or 200, and shot. Only 48 Jews of the town survived World War II
Geography
The Bolekhiv municipality is located in the western part of Ukraine in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. It shares borders with Dolyna Raion, Lviv Oblast, Zhydachiv Raion, Stryi Raion, and Skole Raion. Two rivers, the Sukil and the Svicha, run through the town before joining the Dniester. The Carpathian Mountains lie to the southwest. Bolekhiv is on Ukraine highway 10 between Dolyna and Stryi. The capital, Kiev is approximately 300 km away in a west northwesterly direction.
Administrative divisions
On 21 October 1993, Bolekhiv received the status of a regional city. It encompasses six rural municipalities and eleven villages. The communes are:
In 2001, Bolekhiv city's population was 21,232. The largest districts in Bolekhiv are Bolekhiv city, Tysiv commune and Mizhrichchia commune. The smallest community is the Huziiv commune with a population of 1,159.
Dov Ber Birkenthal also known as Ber of Bolechow, a Jewish merchant and scholar. His memoirs, which he wrote in Hebrew, are housed at the National Library of Canada, Ottawa. The memoirs were translated into Yiddish and into English by Mark Vishnitzer. They describe the town and the Jews of Galicia over a period of over fifty years.
