Emilchino and Stepanivka Collection Points

Emilchino bore different names in different languages: Mezhirichka (former name) , Milchin(Yiddish), Yemelcheno (German), Yemilchina( Hungarian), ( Russian), Emilchine (Ukrainian).

Emilchino is situated on the banks of the Ubort river. Today the population of it makes up some 3-4 thousand inhabitants, whereas in 1920s-30s it was about 10,000. Before WW II, the majority of inhabitants were Jews. Brockhaus and Ephron Encyclopedia refers to 1897 as the year that this location was first mentioned.

Before the 1917 revolution, Emilchino was included into Novograd-Volhynsk (Zvyagel) [usually written by Yiddish speakers as Zhvil] district, which was 40 versts from there. At the end of the 19th century about 1000 residents ( 134 households) lived there. An iron foundry operated and the area was famous for its hop plantations.(1). There was also a cloth-manufacturing factory and a flax-processing plant.

All these lands belonged to the count, Vladimir Alexandrovich UVAROV. Many locations of the Emilchino district still bear the names of his children, i.e. Emilchino (in honor of his daughter Emiliya), Stepanivka (in honor of his son Stepan), Andriyivichy (son Andrey), Varvarivka (daughter Varvara), Paranino (daughter Paranya), etc. His estate (not existing today) was located in the street, which was leading to the village of Seredy. His court tailor was Ezra URMAN, father to my aunt Etl URMAN KHAZIN.

There existed many interesting stories about Uvarov family and its members, passed on by my father's aunt Etl URMAN KHAZIN, some of which I am going to tell.

Etl URMAN and her brother Nyuma URMAN in 1934
picture provided by the generosity ofEtl Khazin and Alex Kopelberg

Etl URMAN and her grandparents Moshe and Khana (SHAPIRO) BARATS
(Emilchino late 1920s)
picture provided by the generosity of Etl Khazin and Alex Kopelberg

Etl URMAN KHAZIN and her husband Boris KHAZIN in 1946
picture provided by the generosity of Etl Khazin and Alex Kopelberg

My father's aunt Etl KHAZIN recalled that Paranya Uvarov was the maid of honor at the emperor's court in St.-Petersburg, where she fell in love with one of the emperor's family members. But she was poisoned by one of the rivals (according to the version I know). The funeral took place in Emilchino, and the local Jews, expressing their deep sorrow and showing their respect for the Uvarov family, initiated erection of wooden arch, through which the funeral passed.

Mikhlya SHAPIRO URMAN
(Emilchino 1917)
wife of Ezra URMAN "court tailor" to Count Uvarov, mother of Etl URMAN KHAZIN who recounted the stories told to Alex Kopelberg
picture provided by the generosity of of Etl Khazin and Alex Kopelberg

Another romantic story happened to Sergey Uvarov, the son of the count, who fell in love with a daughter of a tax-farmer, but here the long story was cut short soon enough, the girl was forbidden to appear in the Uvarovs' estate. Later on Sergey married the daughter of a Kiev manufacturer.

My great-grandfather Usher KOPELBERG, who was a tax-farmer, once won in the court against the count Uvarov. Relatives told me of a time that he passed all the crops' harvest as usual to a certain Feldman, who afterwards denied he got anything (no written document was made). Then, Usher applied to the court against count Uvarov, and, by presenting witnesses, won the case. One of my relatives , Alexander Yaroshevskiy, was in the Zhitomir Archive some 5 years ago and asked if any court cases of the pre-revolutionary times remained. The reply was positive but no time was left for sitting and looking through the files as he was leaving for Israel (regretfully , plenty of archive stuff is still not computerized).

The Uvarovs spent the summertime in Emilchino, but in winter they left for St.Petersburg. The count donated money for constructing the church (which was demolished in the 30s by the Communist regime He also sponsored construction of the park, still in existance today. (Some locals recall that in the 1920s-1930s there was a barrel, where gold from icons was washed off, collected and sent to the region). The count died before the 1917 revolution and is buried in Emilchino Christian cemetery.

Jewish families living there spoke not only Yiddish, they mastered also Ukrainian, sometimes Russian, and even Czech, German, Polish or Serb. Around Emilchino there were villages of the locals originating from these countries. In 1939 many Germans were transferred to the Urals or Kazakhstan.

During the period Civil War, the shtetl was rampaged by all kinds of gangs, and among the numerous pogroms , one happened in Emilchino as well, it was performed by Petlyura military units retreating from Olevsk to Novograd-Volhynsk(April 1919).(2) Fighting between Polish and Red armies took place there too, in 1920.

The Jews living in Emilchino had had a "heder", and a two-storey synagogue (which was later turned into the cinema). When it became a cinema, the projectionist's family name was KAGANOSKIY.

In the 1920s-1930s many handicraftsmen left for the Crimea, where the Soviet power was organizing Jewish collective farms (closed in the end of the 30s).

After the Civil War the authorities opened the 7-year school for Jews (teaching was in Yiddish), the director of which was Mikhail Bentsionovich BRAYMAN. It was located near the district Communist party committee, and pupils there were taught different subjects: the Torah, mathematics, the Yiddish, the Ukrainian, the Russian, the German languages, geography, physics, history, chess, violin playing, physical training, especially "pyramids" ( in the 30s the so-called "pyramids" were very popular). Every 1st of May and 7th November there were demonstrations in which pupils and teachers had to took part. But in 1937 the school was closed, and the director's wife was arrested (the famous "Big Terror" of 1937-1939 began). The Jewish school was turned into a Russian-language 7-year school. As Emilchino was almost on the border with Poland, and there was a permanent military unit, (located on a fenced territory), and as the majority of the military men were Russians, that was the reason for choosing Russian as the primary language for the former Jewish 7-year school.

Emilchino Jewish Class in Russian School 1922

My relative, Etl KHAZIN recalls that in 1970, 1975, 1980 former graduates of theJewish school met each other and the former director in Kiev. The last of the meetings was in 1980 when director BRAYMAN was alive, he passed away soon after that reunion.

During WW II the local Jews (those who did not flee) were executed by the Nazis. According to information on the Internet, the mass grave is located in Vorovskiy Street. After the liberation of Emilchino, some Jews returned, but even then they had to be very cautious. Gangs of former local policemen, who had cooperated with the Germans, had been roaming for more than 6 years in the neighboring woods.

In the 1950s-60s there still lived a comparatively large number of Jewish families (at least, 30-40%). There were many teachers, doctors, handicraftsmen. While visiting my relatives I often heard Ukrainian Yiddish spoken by them ( it was a very interesting mixture of Yiddish and Ukrainian words, sometimes the latter were prevailing in speech over the former). There was a cinema, a summer dance-hall, a Palace of Culture, a Pioneer Palace. People visited each other frequently as the first TV sets appeared only in the mid 1960s. It was really an event to watch the TV programs; my family went to the apartment of my first teacher Sima Samuilovna VALDMAN and together with other neighbors spent an evening watching, talking and eating. As many families had their own houses with gardens, large amounts of fruits and vegetables were brought onto tables, put just in the yards. Among the most popular fruit were strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, black currant. In autumn potatoes were the main course.

Only a couple of central streets were covered with asphalt, all the rest were cobbled. The most significant meeting place was the bus station, where buses arrived from Zhitomir, Novograd-Volhynsk, Korosten, Berdichev (once a day), and surrounding villages. The nearest railway stations were in Yablunets (12 kilometers from the shtetl) and on the "33rd kilometer", which was (to my mind) on the road to Olevsk.

The last time I was in Emilchino was in 1987, four years later I left for Israel.

1.Brokhauz and Ephron Encyclopadea ( 20-th century).
2. Book on Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine in 1919 (book was published in 1921 in Berlin in Russian) Author – Gusev_Orenburgskiy.

Family Photos

Beyla Isaakovna SHAPIRO, husband, and brothers
Photo owner Alex Kopelberg says"I'm attaching a photo taken in Emilchino in 1926. I know only that these are members of the Shapiro Family, the sitting woman is Beyla Isaakovna Shapiro(1908?-1982), born in Emilchino, died & buried in Simferopol. The first on the left is her husband Yudko Shapiro ( 1902 ? -1945), born in Emilchino and perished in WW II. The other two men are Beyla's brothers, one named Aron. ... [Beyla] is my cousin's grandmother." This picture appears also on our Most Wanted page, can you help us learn more about them?

Yitzhak and Rose (PORTNOY) BARON

Mark Baron who posts the picture above sent a simple note inspired by this page "My grandfather Philip Baron (b 1877) and his brother Harry, with their parents Yitzhak and Rose, immigrated from Emilchino, Ukraine (Volhynia Gubernia). Attached is a photo of my great-grandparents Yitzhak Baron and Rose (Portnoy) from their arrival in Canada in 1906." We wrote back and forth and Mark echoes the need of every researcher as he tells us what he know and asks us for help - "Little is known about my great-grandparents...I don't know where they were born. They lived in a turbulent time of constant ethnic upheavals and redrawing of borders. I have no information regarding the Portnoys. ... The definitive link to Emilchino is through my grandfather's brother Harry, who named it as his place of origin. My grandfather said he was from Soroshka, which I took to be a phonetic equivalent of Zarechye. Zarechye means ' across the river', and most cities, towns, villages located on a river had a 'Zarechye'. Emilchino is on a river, or the confluence of several rivers.. In a letter from an Ethnic German geneological site I found a reference to Zarechye in approx the same location as Emilchino. ... Both my grandfather and his brother were merchants and operated small businesses in Portage la Prairie/Winnipeg areas of Manitoba. ... My great-grandparents were essentially peasants and a hard life is written on their faces. ... I contacted a few people regarding Emilchino hoping somoeno might have old photo's of the shtetl, community buildings, cemetery, etc. " 

The Freylikhman Family in Emilchino in 1940

Gennady Freylikhman provided the above picture and details on many members of the FREYLIKHMAN family for our Occupational Survey of the Ukraine including those in this picture. The list, translated by Alex Kopelberg included Yefim (aka Falik) Shlomovich FREYLIKHMAN; Adelya Markovna FREYLIKHMAN nee SOLOVEY; Klara FUX nee SOLOVEY;Polina CHUDNOVSKIY nee SOLOVEY;, Zayvel Shlemovich FREYLIKHMAN; Motel Shlemovich FREYLIKHMAN; Shlema Zayvelovich FREYLIKHMAN; and Bronya Motelevna FREYLIKHMAN nee GLOZMAN. You can see the additional information on each of them in that Survey in January 2006.

STEPANIVKA
The History of Emilchino and Stepanivka continued

by Alex Kopelberg, copyright 2005

The KOPELBERG family of Stepanivka in 1938
picture generously provided by Alex Kopelberg

A village located some 12 kilometers from Emilchino. Before the WW II there lived a few Jewish families (two families of KOPELBERG, FREYLIKHMAN are the only ones I know about so far).

In the 1870s my great-grandfather Usher KOPELBERG built his own house there. As the village was surrounded by thick woods, the logs for the construction were simply cut in the yard. This house was demolished only in the 60s of 20th century. It was rather a huge building, which consisted of two parts, each one containing two-three rooms. In the Soviet period one part of it was occupied by the local aid station and a paramedic lived.

Usher KOPELBERG was a tax-farmer, and had some small enterprises, but after the 1917 Revolution, everything was taken away from him. There remained only the recollections of my relatives or acquaintances, who told us that he was a much respected person, had his own place in the synagogue, was among those who subscribed and read the province newspaper. On Sabbath many Jews came to his house to pray, exchange news and discuss problems. I know that his son, my grandfather, Pesakh KOPELBERG, went to the heder[Hebrew school for young children]; therefore, we can come to the conclusion that enough children lived there to open this institution. Bu the only reminder that is left of his home are the pictures of the silver utensils for Pesakh [Passover], which are shown in the photographs accompanying this article.

" "- Alex Kopelberg in note to Deborah Glassman
Etl URMAN KHAZIN remembered setting the table for the Passover holiday with these dishes and said" First the table was covered with broadcloth, then - with oilcloth, the third was - linen tablecloth, the fourth - the white tablecloth, and the upper one - festive cloth".

Pieces of the silver Passover tableware photographed by Alex Kopelberg

Please click on any photo to see larger undistorted image