Zolochiv

Zolochiv (Золочів, Złoczów, זלאָטשאָוו, Zlotchov) is a small city of district significance in Lviv Oblast of Ukraine, the administrative center of Zolochiv Raion. The city is located 60 kilometers east of Lviv along highway Lviv-Ternopil and the railway line Krasne-Ternopil. Its population is approximately, covering an area of 11,64 km2.

History
The site was occupied from AD 1180 under the name Radeche until the end of the 13th century when a wooden fort was constructed. This was burned in the 14th century during the invasion of the Crimean Tatars.

In 1442, the city was founded as Zolochiv, by John of Sienna, a Polish nobleman of the Dębno family, Although the first written mention of Zolochiv was in 1423.

By 1523, it was already a city of Magdeburg rights.

Zolochiv was incorporated as a town on 15 September 1523 by the Polish king Sigismund I the Old. Located in the Ruthenian Voivodship of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it belonged to several noble families.

From the first partition of Poland in 1772 until 1918, the town was part of the Austrian monarchy (Austria side after the compromise of 1867), head of the district with the same name, one of the 78 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in Austrian Galicia province, or "Crown land", in 1900. The fate of this province was then disputed between Poland and Russia, until the Peace of Riga in 1921, attributing Galicia to the Second Polish Republic.

From 15 March 1923 to August 16, 1945, a town in the administrative district of the second Polish Republic in Ternopil. Zolochiv, still named Złoczów, belonged to the Tarnopol Voivodship until the Polish September Campaign in 1939, when it was occupied by the Soviet Union.

After the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR in June 1941 to July 1944 the city was incorporated into the General Government in the District of Galicia. The Germans occupied the town on July 2, 1941. On the same day attacks began on Jews by local Ukrainians and farmers, who flooded into the town to welcome the German army. The day after, tombs of political prisoners were found in the town, all of them murdered by Soviets before their retreat, and this was a reason for the Ukrainians to make pogroms on Jews. The pogrom began on July 4, 1941. For three days 3,000-4,000 Jews were murdered. The German soldiers were active in the murders. In November 1941, the Germans kidnapped nearly 200 Jewish youngsters to the work camp, Latski-Vielkia. In August 30, 1942, about 2,700 Jews were put inside cattle cars and sent to the Bełżec extermination camp. On November, 1942, Germans and their Ukrainian assistants deported 2,500 old people, women, and children to the same extermination camp. On December 1, 1942 a ghetto was established. Between 7,500-9,000 people were imprisoned there, as well as remnants of communities of the surrounding areas, including Olesko, Sasov, and Biali Kamen. The ghetto was liquidated on April 2, 1943, 6 000 people were murdered in a mass execution perpetrated by an Einsatzgruppen at a pit near the village of Yelhovitsa.

From July 1944 to 16 August 1945, it was again occupied by the Red Army.

After the Yalta Conference (4–11 February 1945), drawn as a consequence of the findings of the interim Government of national unity signed on August 16, 1945, an agreement with the USSR, recognising the slightly modified Curzon line for the Eastern Polish border, on the basis of the agreement on the border between the SOVIET UNION and PKWN Government on July 27, 1944. In the Tarnopol voivodeship agreements, Zolochiv was included in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the USSR, where it remained until 1991.

Since 1991, Zolochiv has been part of independent Ukraine.

Architectural landmarks

 * Zolochiv Castle, built in the early 17th century by Jakub Sobieski (the king's father)
 * Stone Synagogue, 1724 (destroyed during World War II)
 * Church of the Assumption, Zolochiv, 1730
 * St. Nicolas Church, Zolochiv, 16th century
 * Church of the Resurrection, Zolochiv, 17th century
 * Church of the Ascension, Zolochiv, 19th century
 * Arsenal, Zolochiv, 15th century

Notable people

 * Tadeusz Brzeziński, Polish diplomat, father of Zbigniew Brzezinski
 * Jan Cieński, Roman Catholic bishop
 * Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Yiddish writer
 * Franz von Hillenbrand, a German aristocrat, Imperial and Royal accountant
 * Roald Hoffmann, chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
 * Andriy Husin, football player
 * Naphtali Herz Imber, Jewish poet, wrote lyrics of Hatikvah, the national anthem of Israel
 * Marian Iwańciów, painter
 * Rabbi Yechiel Michel, Maggid (Preacher) of Zlotshev
 * Ilya Schor, painter, jeweler, engraver, and artist of Judaica
 * Abraham Shalit, Jewish historian
 * James Sobieski, Polish prince
 * John III Sobieski, king of Poland
 * Katarzyna Sobieska, sister of John III Sobieski and a noble lady
 * Igor Vovchanchyn, MMA fighter
 * Weegee, photographer born Arthur Fellig
 * Rabbi Zev Wolf
 * Ignacy Zaborowski, mathematician, professor