BLOCH Origin of surname

LENGYEL

Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birth place, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

A striking example of such a place name is Poland which had one of the biggest and most important Jewish populations in the European Diaspora up to the Holocaust. The Jewish surname Lengyel means "a Pole/Polish" in Hungarian. The terms Pollak (German), Polacco (Italian), Polonais (French), Polacek (Czech), Lengyel (Hungarian) were used to describe a person living in or coming from Poland. Polin (the Yiddish name of the country), Polsky (the adjective in Polish) and their derivatives - including abbreviations and extensions influenced by the languages spoken by the ethnic majorities among whom Jews were living at the time - produced a great number of family names. The family name Pollack is documented in the 15th century in northern Bohemia, where it also appears as Polak in the 16th century. Benedikt Pollak of Prague attended the Leipzig fair in Germany in 1675, as did several Jews called Polack in 1676. The form Poll (which could be an abbreviation of Pollak or Pole) is found in 1693 among Jewish Leipzig fair visitors. Pohlack is documented in 1697 in Mannheim, Germany; Polacke in 1739 in Metz, France, and Pollyak in 1746 in Pressburg (Bratislava) in Slovakia. In 1751 the list of Jews attending the Leipzig fair included Lazarus Polazcsik, and in 1761 Enoch Polatschik. Polonais is documented in Paris in 1780 and Pollonais in 1798 in Nice, France. The variants Bolac, Bol(l)ack, Bol(l)ach and Bolackin were current in Alsace in the late 18th century. Polyakov/Poliakof(f), Polonsky and Polsky became frequent in 19th century Russia and America. Lengyel, the Hungarian for "Pole"/"Polish" was often adopted in the 19th century. The mid 20th century witnessed the birth of new French forms Bollack; Poulain from Pollak, and Poliet from Poliakof. Lengyel could also be associated with Lengyeltoti near Lake Balaton in Hungary.

Distinguished bearers of the Jewish family name Lengyel include the Hungarian composer Miksa Lengyel (born 1859), the 20th century Hungarian jurist and judge Aurel Lengyel, and the 20th century Hungarian-born American playwright and film script writer Menyhert (Melchior) Lengyel.

WEGIER, WENGIER

Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birth place, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

This family name is derived from węgier, the Polish term for Hungarian.

Places, regions and countries of origin or residence are some of the sources of Jewish family names. Many of these names, originally based on toponymics, have developed into variants which no longer resemble the form of the original source. Thus, unless the family has reliable records, names based on toponymics cannot prove the exact origin of the family.

Wegier is documented as a Jewish family name with Michael Wegier (b. 1965), Chief Executive of Board of Deputies of British Jews (as of 2021).

Hayim Yitzhak Hacohen Bloch (1864-1948), rabbi, born in Plunge, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire) and served there as rabbi, founding a yeshiva. In 1902 he succeeded Yitzhak Halevi Kook as rabbi of Bausk (now Bauska, Latvia). In 1922 he moved to the United States and served as rabbi in Jersey, New Jersey, until his death. In 1932 he was made honorary president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the US and Canada and during World War II was one of the leaders of the Vaad Hatsalah which worked to save Jews, especially rabbis and rabbinical students, from Europe. Bloch was the author of works of rabbinic studies and on ethics. he died in Jersey, NJ, USA.

Joshua Bloch (1890-1957), librarian and rabbi, born in Darbenai, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire). Bloch went to the US in 1907. He taught at New York University from 1919 to 1928. Trained as a Reform rabbi, from 1922 he served as chaplain in several hospitals for mental hygiene in New York. His main work was as head of the Jewish Division of the New York Public Library (1923-56), which he developed into a major Judaica collection. Many of his bibliographical researches into the history of Hebrew printing were published by the Library. He founded and edited the Journal of Jewish Bibliography.

Elijah Meyer Bloch (1894-1955), Lithuanian rabbi and dean of the Telz (Telshe) Yeshiva in Cleveland, OH. Bloch was born in Telz (Telsiai), Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire), the son of Joseph Leib Bloch, Rosh Yeshiva of Telz. At the age of 23 he was appointed teacher in the Yeshiva. With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, many of the teachers and students were killed and the yeshiva was forced to close.

Bloch, now Rosh Yeshiva, escaped to the USA and reestablished it in Cleveland. Bloch used the phrase "Telz style" (meaning precise, inductive reasoning) to describe his special way of teaching Talmud. Bloch firmly resisted any compromise with the Reform movement. Nevertheless, he was supported by the Jewish Federation of Cleveland in his efforts to establish a local Orthodox high school. By 1964 he had created an extensive educational network for boys and girls similar to that which had existed in Lithuania. Teacher’s seminaries for men and women graduates were also established. He was active in the Agudat Israel from 1937. In the USA was also one of the leaders of the American branch of the Agudat Israel and member of the Moetzet Gedolei ha-Torah. Bloch was a firm supporter of Israel.

Denise Madeleine Bloch (1916-1945), French secret agent working with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in World War II, born in Paris, France. Before World War 2, she was a secretary at the Citroen company. In 1942 the family, as Jews, was all arrested by the Gestapo. Bloch was recruited in Lyon to work for the SOE. She began resistance work with SOE radio operator Brian Stonehouse until his arrest near the end of October that year. Following Stonehouse's capture, she went into hiding until early 1943 when she was put in touch with SOE agents George Reginald Starr and Philippe de Vomécourt. She began working with them in the town of Agen in the Lot-et-Garonne département in the south of France.

However, it was decided to send her to London and accompanied by another agent, she walked across the Pyrenees mountains making their way to Gibraltar and eventually to London. There, SOE trained her as a wireless operator in preparation for a return to France.

On 2 March 1944, together with fellow SOE agent, Robert Benoist, she was dropped into central France. Working in the Nantes area, the pair re-established contact with other SOE agents. However, in June, both she and Benoist were arrested and Bloch was interrogated and tortured before being shipped to Germany. She was held in prisons at Torgau in Saxony and at Königsberg in Brandenburg, where she suffered great hardship from exposure, cold and malnutrition.
Eventually deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp, sometime between 25 January 1945 and 5 February, 29-year-old Denise Madeleine Bloch was executed by the Germans and her body disposed of in the crematorium. Two other female members of the SOE held at Ravensbrück, were executed at about the same time.

Sam E. Bloch (Shmayahu Eliahu) (1924-2018), founder of Beit Hatfutsot and of the American Friends of Beit Hatfutsot, of which he served as national Vice President and Chairman for many years, a resistance fighter during World War II and who devoted his career to preserving the memory of Jewish Holocaust survivors, founder of museums and memorials, born in Iwje, Poland (now in Belarus), the son of a prominent Hebrew-language teacher. Bloch was educated at Tarbuth Hebrew College in Vilnius, Lithuania, and at Bonn University. 

After his father was killed in a mass execution by the Nazis in 1941, Bloch, then 16, along with his mother and younger brother, escaped a Jewish ghetto just before it was liquidated and sought shelter with a family of Polish farmers. They later fled into the countryside, where they hid first with Christian farmers and then in the woods. Bloch made connections with an underground Jewish resistance movement and then he joined the Bielski Partisans, an armed Jewish unit of resistance fighters led by three brothers who operated in the woods of Belarus.  Bloch engaged in sabotage, fought against Nazi forces and collaborators, and helped rescue other Jews.

In 1945, the Bloch family ended up at a displaced-persons camp near the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, Bloch became the youngest member of the camp’s governing committee.

Having married Lilly Czaban, a Holocaust survivor, at the camp in 1949, he immigrated to the USA, settling in New York.  Bloch started working for the World Zionist Organization. He worked there for more than 50 years, eventually becoming director of publications. He edited and published many volumes of Holocaust history, memoirs and poetry.

In 1965, on the 20th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp, Bloch organized one of the first major reunions of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

Along with other Holocaust survivors, including Josef Rosensaft and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, Bloch took a leading role in planning Holocaust memorials and museums. He was a founding member of the International Society for Yad Vashem, the leading Holocaust remembrance organization in Israel, and helped distribute financial support to survivors worldwide.

Bloch served on a commission to create New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. He was a member of the committees that oversaw the early development of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and helped create museums devoted to the Holocaust and Jewish history at Bergen-Belsen and in Israel.

Bloch served as president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants; president of the World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Survivors Associations; chairman of the Advisory Council of the Foundation for World War II Memorial Sites in Lower Saxony, Germany, and served as a member of its board.

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959), composer, born in Geneva, Switzerland. Bloch studied the violin as a child and with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. In 1896 he went to Brussels to further his musical education, studying with Eugene Ysaye and Francois Rosse. Later he studied with Iwan Knorr in Frankfurt and Ludwig Thuelle in Munich, Germany. In 1915 he became a professor of composition in Geneva. In 1916 Bloch went to the USA. He taught composition at the Mannes Music School in New York and later served as director of the Cleveland Institute of Music (1920-1925) and the San Francisco Conservatory (1925-1930). In 1930 he went to Switzerland, but returned to the US in 1939, settling in Oregon in 1943. For several summers he taught composition at the University of California at Berkeley. His students included Roger Sessions, Randall Thompson, and Elliott Carter.
His early works are influenced by Richard Strauss, Claude Debussy, and Gustav Mahler. Later he strove to achieve a Jewish national style. Among the works reflecting this tendency are Trois Poems Juifs for orchestra (1913); Israel, Symphony (1912-1916); Schelomo, A Hebrew Rhapsody (1915/16); Ba'al Shem (1923); Sacred Service (1933) and Voice in the Wilderness (1936). His other works include Symphony in C sharp minor (1901); Winter-spring, symphonic poem (1905); Macbeth, opera (1910); Suite for viola and piano (1919); Quintet for piano and strings (1923); America, Rhapsody for orchestra (1926); Helvetia, Symphony (1929); Concerto for violin and orchestra (1938); Concerto for piano and orchestra (1948); Symphony in E major (1955); 5 String Quartets (1916-1956), many piano pieces and chamber music works. Bloch died in Portland, Oregon (USA).

Mor Ballagi (born Moritz Bloch) (1815-1891), philologist and Christian theologian, born in Inocz, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire). He studied at the well known טeshivot at Nagyvarad (now Oradea, in Romania), and Papa, Hungary. While working as a teacher in Moor and Surany, he studied classical and modern languages and also mathematics. His religion being an obstacle to the obtaining of a diploma at the University of Budapest, he moved to Paris in 1839, where he took up Oriental studies. Jozsef Eotvoes, a leading Hungarian writer and statesman, was much impressed by Ballagi's pamphlet A zsidokrol (About the Jews), in which he advocated the emancipation of Hungarian Jewry, and called upon him to return to Hungary, which he did in 1840. Ballagi began a Hungarian translation of the Bible, of which, however, only the Pentateuch and Joshua appeared (Budapest, 1840-1843). Its language and his commentaries were widely praised in Hungary. In recognition he was made a member of the Hungarian Academy of Science. In 1841 he translated the Hebrew prayer book into Hungarian.

He wrote several pamphlets in favour of Hungarian independence and succeeded in enlisting the support of leading politician Count Stephen Szechenyi, who had championed the modernization of Hungarian economic, social, and intellectual life and was the leader of the moderate liberal group in the Hungarian diet, for the establishment of a Hungarian rabbinical seminary. In 1842 Ballagi went to Tuebingen, Germany, where he converted to Protestantism (1843) although he remained sympathetic to Judaism. The following year he became a lecturer at the Lyceum in Szarvas (Hungary) and in 1851 he was made professor there.

During the War of Liberation, as the revolution of 1848 was known in Hungary, he was secretary to General Goergey and subsequently was assigned to the War Department. Later he also was made professor at the Protestant Theological Institute of Pest. In 1959 he produced a Hungarian dictionary and a collection of Hungarian proverbs. He also published also a textbook of the Hebrew language (1872) and wrote a number of books on Christian subjects. He wrote in both Hungarian and German. Ballagi died in Budapest.

Élie (Éliézer-Léopold) Bloch (1909-1943), rabbi and member of the French resistance during WW II, born in Dambach-la-Ville, France (then part of Germany). He studied in Barr, where his father Joseph Bloch served as rabbi. He attended École de tissage et de filature of Mulhouse graduating in 1928. In 1929 he started his studies at the Séminaire israélite de France in Paris and also attended the Etz Haim (Ez Chajim) yeshiva in Montreux, Switzerland. Bloch was ordained a rabbi in 1934.

In 1935 he was appointed assistant-rabbi to Rabbi Nathan Neter, Chief Rabbi of Metz, France.

In 1939 he became the rabbi of thousands of Jews who were evacuated from the Moselle department at the outbreak of WW II to the region of Poitou in central-western France. After the German occupation of France, the Jewish refugees in Poitou, a region under direct German administration, were arrested and interned in a number of camps. Bloch became the representative of the Union générale des israélites de France (UGIF) and in charge of the Camp de la route de Limoges, also known as camp de Poitiers. He could not prevent the deportation to Nazi death camps of about 1,600 from prisoners the camp.

With the collaboration of Father Jean Fleury, the chaplain of the Roma people interned in the camp of Poitiers, and other French people, later recognized as Rightenous Among the Nations, he succeeded in assisting many Jews, particularly children, in crossing into the Free Zone of France.

Following the arrest of his wife in January 1943, he too is arrested in February 1943 along with their daughter aged 5. They were detained in the Drancy camp and then in December 1943 deported to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

Gustave Bloch (1848-1923), historian, born in Fegersheim, France, son of a teacher who later became a principal of an elementary school in Strasbourg. Bloch attended the high school in Strasbourg and then at Lycee Condorcet in Paris. He studied at École normale supérieure in Paris graduating in 1872. He was a member of the École française de Rome, after 1873, and of École française d'Athènes, after 1874.

He served as Professor of Greek and Latin antiquities at the Faculty of Letters of Lyon from 1884, and professor of Roman history at the Faculté des lettres de Paris from 1904. His works include Les origines du Sénat romain (1883), Les origines, la Gaule indépendante et la Gaule romaine, vols. 1-2 of L’Histoire de France des origines à la Révolution (Ernest Lavisse ed., 1900), La République romaine. Les conflits politiques et sociaux (1913), and L'Empire romain. Évolution et decadence (1922).

Gustave Bloch is the father of the historian Marc Bloch (1886-1944).  

Elisa Bloch nee Marcus (1848-1905), sculptor, born in Wroclaw, Poland (then Breslau, Germany). Her family moved to France settling in Paris. She was educated in Paris at Academie Julian and soon began a career as a sculptor. She held her first exhibition in 1878 that was followed by participation to many Salons in Paris. Bloch is the author of several public monuments commissioned by a number of towns in France. Her works include busts of numerous public figures, among them Chief Rabbi Zadoc Kahn, the astronomer Camille Flammarion, the Old West figure Buffalo Bill, and the winner of Nobel Prize for Peace Frédéric Passy. In 1892 she founded the monthly review Paris-Province that she managed until her death.   

Chaim Bloch (1881-1973), rabbi and author, born in Nagybocskó, Austria-Hungary (now Velykyi Bychkiv in Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine). He studied in various yeshivas and was ordained as rabbi. To earn a living, however, he found work in the field of business. He continued with his studies in Kabbala and Jewish law. With the outbreak of World War I, in 1914, Bloch fled to Vienna. In 1915, he served as chaplain in the Austrian-Hungarian Army, spending about nine months in trenches. He was wounded, declared unfit for active service and assigned to garrison duty in a POW camp at Csót, a village in Veszprém county, Hungary.

It was during this time when he wrote his internationally acclaimed Der Prager Golem von seiner “Geburt” bis zum seinen “Tod” (Vienna, 1919, 2nd edition Berlin, 1920). From 1917, Bloch contributed to Osterreichische Wochenschrift (founded by his tutor, Joseph Samuel Bloch), Neues Wiener Journal and other Viennese Jewish publications.

At the same time, from 1918 to 1920, he was rabbi in the city of Liesing, near Vienna, but not being a citizen he was compelled to leave. In 1923 he visited the United States seeking patrons for his work Ozar Chayim, an encyclopedia of rabbinical texts from Responsa literature. In 1932 Bloch became co-editor of Juedisches Jahrbuch fuer Oesterreich 5693 (1932/33), Vienna.

With the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany in 1933, Bloch turned to writing against anti-Semitism, and other Nazis revived old blood libels against Jews in the press by publishing the Blut und Eros im judischen Schrifttum und Leben (1935,) a complete exposure of anti-Semitic accusations. In March 1938, following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, Bloch was imprisoned and detained in a concentration camp. His Ozar Chayim was confiscated and destroyed.

After being released in August 1938 he moved to the U.K. via the Netherlands. In 1939 he immigrated to United States., where he continued to write in German, Hebrew, English and Yiddish. In 1963 he became almost blind. Then he made use of his talent as storyteller and of his extensive knowledge of Chassidism and mysticism, describing Eastern European Jewry to the Western World. Bloch was an adamant and outspoken defender of the Jews.

Bloch was a very prolific writer. His best known works include Ahnenstolz, Biographie des Rabbi Elieser Lippman von Strelitz (1904); Die Gemeinde der Chassidim (1920); Israel der Gotteskampfer (1920), Hirsch Ostropoler, ein judischer Till Eulenspiegel and Ostjudischer Humor (1921), Talmudische Weisheit, altjuedische Wechselgesprache (1921), Gottes Volk und seine Lehre (1922); Das Juedische Amerika (1926); Kabbalistische Sagen (1925), Lebenserinnerungen des Kabbalisten Vital (1926), Traume sind keine Schaume (1929), Priester der Liebe, die Welt der Chassidim (1930), Der Judenhass im Spiegel der Jahrtausende (1935), Das Geliebte Land, Sagen aus Palestina (1937), Hekhal le Divre Hazal ve’Pitgameihem (1948), Kum-Riv et heHarim (1948/49), Ve Da Mah she Tashiv (1949), Mi Natan li Meshiah Ya’akov ve Israel levozezin (1957), Masa Federbusch (1959), Dovev Sifte Yeshenim (1959), and Erzalungen und Legenden (1966). Bloch was a member of P.E.N. (Publicists, Essayists and Novelists); of Anshe Emet’ Bronx, New York, and Habonim, New York, and he received the Title of ‘Professor’ from President Tomáš Masaryk of Czechoslovakia.

Moïse Bloch (1790-1868), rabbi, known as the Hokhem d’Uttene (“The Sage of Uttenheim"), born in Uttenheim, France. He studied with Abraham Isaac Lunteschutz, the rabbi of Westhoffen. Bloch moved to Strasbourg in 1820, following his marriage to Madeleine (Matel Sarah) Goldschmidt, a descendant of a rabbinical family. In Strasbourg he directed a small private yeshiva that was attended by students who later continued their studies at the Rabbinical Seminary in Metz. One of his students was Rabbi Zadoc Kahn, Chief Rabbi of France from 1889. Despite refusing to accept the office of rabbi, Bloch was regarded as an authority for Halachic issues and his advice was highly respected by the Jews of Alsace. Bloch is the author of Yismach-Moshe, a commentary of the Talmudic tractate Hulin that deals with the rules of shechita and kashrut.

Pedro Bloch (1914-2004), composer, poet, playwright and author of children 's books, born in Zhitomir, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire). His immigrated to Brazil during the early 20th century. He attended Colégio Pedro II in Rio de Janeiro and subsequently enrolled in the National Faculty of Medicine of Praia Vermelha (now known as the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro). He is recognized as one of the early trailblazers in the field of speech therapy in Brazil. His literary output encompasses more than a hundred books, with over 50 of them originating from his experiences caring for children as a practicing physician. One of his most renowned theatrical creations, The Hands of Eurydice, made its debut on May 13, 1950, and went on to be performed over 60,000 times in more than 45 different countries. Pedro Bloch is also credited as the author of works such as Dicionário de anecdotes, Você que falar melhor? ("Do you want to speak better?"), Samba no Pé, Teco-Teco, and Um pai de verdade ("A real father"). Additionally, he authored the screenscript for the film Meus Amores no Rio in 1958.

Zholkva

In Ukrainian: Жовква; in Polish: Zolkiew

A city in Lviv Oblast of western Ukraine; formerly in eastern Galicia, Poland; known as Nesterov between 1951 - 1992.

Jewish settlement in Zolkhva began in the 16th century and the community became important; entries in its minute book (pinkas) commence from 1613. Thousands of Jewish refugees took refuge in Zholkva during the Chmielnicki Massacres of 1648-49 and helped to defend it from the Cossacks, who agreed to lift their siege on the town on payment of 20,000 Gulden. In the second half of the 17th century the community benefited from the general prosperity which Zholkva enjoyed as the patrimony of King John III Sobieski. A number of wealthy Jews with influence at court made their home in Zholkva.

The magnificent fortified synagogue built in 1687 with the king's assistance, known as the Sobieski Shul, was preserved until 1941. The favorable economic and cultural conditions which had made Zholkva one of the leading communities in the province of Russia came to an end in the second half of the 18th century; 2,100 Jewish inhabitants are recorded at this period, but in 1770 the town was devastated by a plague in which some 800 Jews died. Leading members of the Zholkva community included John Sobieski's physician, Simchah Menahem of Jona; the royal tax farmer Bezalel b. Nathan; the parnas Israel Isser b. Mordecai; and the Av Bet Din Alexander Schor. Between 1680 and 1730 Zholkva served as a center of the late Shabbatean movement in Poland. Among the sectarians in Zholkva were Chayyim Malakh, Fischel Zlochover, Isaac Keidaner, and Moses Meir Kaminski. At the end of the 18th century Zholkva became an important center of the Haskalah movement, particularly as Nathan Krochmal lived there. Among scholars and writers of Zholkva in this period were Baruch Tzevi Noy, principal of the Jewish-German school; Eliezer Favir, the Yiddish folklorist and author of the Sippurei Ha-Pela'ot (1800); and Samson Ha-Levi Bloch, author of the popular geographical work Shevilei Olam. Tzevi Hirsch Chajes acted as av bet din between 1828 and 1852. Many of the Zholkva community were occupied in the fur industry, which began to develop in the 19th century and employed hundreds of workers. Emigre furriers from Zholkva, who acquired an international reputation, found their way to the great workshops of Paris, London, and Brussels. Educational and welfare institutions in Zholkva before World War II included a Talmud torah, schools established by the Tarbut and Beth Jacob organizations, and orphanages which also provided vocational training. The annual budget of the community totaled 42,000 zlotys in 1937. The Jews in Zholkva numbered 4,100 (about half the total population) at the end of the 19th century; in 1931 there were 4,500. The Jewish population numbered over 5,000 in june 1941.

After the outbreak of war between Germany and the U.S.S.R., the quick collapse of the Soviet front prevented Jews fleeing eastward from reaching safety. The Germans entered the town on June 28, 1941, and within a few days burned down its synagogues. Shortly thereafter, a Judenrat was imposed by the Germans, headed by Febus Rubinfeld. The Germans imposed a contribution (fine) of 250,000 rubles, 5 kg of gold, and 100 kg of silver to be paid within three days. In early 1942 the Jewish population underwent registration for hard labor; b - capable of lighter work; c - non- productive. In an aktion on March 15, 1942, the Germans rounded up 700 persons in the c category and dispatched them to the Belzec death camp. The Judenrat meanwhile organized varied welfare activities to alleviate the suffering of the community. The Jews who escaped from the death train transports to Belzec were helped in particular. The train station in Zholkva served as a transit point for the death trains from the east. Although education of their children was prohibited, the Jews managed to set up a clandestine education program for groups of six to eight pupils under 30 teachers. In a second aktion on November 22-23, 1942, 2,500 persons were shipped to Belzec. Numerous victims attempted escape from the trains; the rails were strewn with their corpses. Very few made their way back to the town. That month a ghetto was set up for the Jews of Zholkva and the vicinity - mostly from Mosty Wielkie, Dobroszyce, Kulikow, Glinsk, and Wola Wysoka. An epidemic broke out, with a mortality rate rising to 20 a day. On March 15, 1943, over 600 men were taken to the Janowska street labor camp in Lvov. The Germans and their Ukrainian helpers broke into the ghetto on March 25, 1943, and the inmates were rounded up in Dominikanski square and taken to Kamenka Bugskaya; there they were murdered and buried in mass graves. One hundred men and seventy women were spared and sent off to the Janowska street camp.

18 Jews were hidden by the Beck family: the father Valenti Beck, his wife Julia and their daughter Alexandra. Because of the German origins of Valenti Beck and their Catholic faith, the family did not arouse suspicion, moreover, they used to invite to their home German soldiers so that to be seen as supporting the actions of the Germans. In 1983, the Yad Vashem Institute recognized the three members of the Beck family as "Righteous Among the Nations."

Only 70 others, skilled craftsmen, were still left in Zholkva, interned in a building in Sobieski street. Some of them were killed later. Zholkva was taken by Soviet forces on July 23, 1944. About 70 Jews survived the Holocaust.