Janowa Dolina
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Janowa Dolina was a model settlement for workers of the Polish State Basalt Quarry, located in the Volhynian Voivodeship, in the Kostopol County of the Second Polish Republic. The name comes from Polish king Jan Kazimierz Waza, who reportedly hunted in the Volhynian forests, and after hunting — rested on the shore of the Horyn river. The village was destroyed during World War II.
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[edit] First years
The settlement was built in the late 1920s and early 1930s, during a period of Polish colonization of lands within the bordeers of Poland but having a Ukrainian majority population. It was built close to the newly-created basalt quarry. Production of basalt in the quarry started in 1929, when the 18km rail connection between Janowa Dolina and Kostopol was completed (Kostopol is located on the main rail route Wilno–Luniniec–Lwow). As the quarry employed in late 1930s some 3,000 workers (97% of them were Polish), lodgings were built for them and their families.
Thus, a town built from scratch was constructed, smack in the forests of central Volynia, by the Horyn River. The quarry and the town were brainchild of engineer Leonard Szutkowski (who kept his post until 1940) and his deputies, engineer J. Niwinski and engineer Urbanowicz. Most workers lived in the freshly-built houses; some commuted from nearby villages.
[edit] The settlement
Janowa Dolina was a very modern settlement: all houses had access to electricity and plumbing and its layout was based on a specially designed grid plan. Houses were placed in the beautiful pine forest. Streets bore no names; they were marked by letters — A, B, C, D… G (Glowna — main), until the last one, Z, placed closest to the Horyn River. Along them there were houses, each designed for 4 families. As inhabitants of Janowa Dolina later remembered, the settlement was full of flowers, plants and trees and neighbors competed with each other, trying to have the most beautiful flower garden. The settlement was separated from the nearby quarry by a strip of dense forest.
In the central part of the settlement there was a huge, U-shaped building, called BLOK. Inside there were several institutions — a movie theater, hotel, cafeteria, stores. Next to the building there was a sports field, with a soccer stadium. The quarry sponsored its own sports club — Strzelec Janowa Dolina, which had several departments — soccer, boxing, wrestling, swimming. A Roman Catholic church was planned, but it had never been built. Instead, the faithful used a large barn. Also, in Janowa Dolina there was a Polish police station, school, kindergarten and a health center.
As both the quarry and the settlement belonged to the Polish State, private businesses were not allowed. In Janowa Dolina all trade was controlled by the national “Społem” company, inhabitants were able to purchase all desired products but alcohol, which was not sold in the settlement.
[edit] World War II
In September 1939, Soviet troops, following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, attacked the eastern part of Poland, which was not guarded by the Polish Army, as at the same time the Poles were fighting the Germans in the West. Eastern Poland (Kresy) was quickly occupied, together with Janowa Dolina, which, like the entire Volhynian Voivodeship, became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Together with Soviet rule came mass deportations to Siberia and other areas of the empire; between September 1939 and June 1941 Janowa Dolina lost hundreds of inhabitants.
In June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Janowa Dolina was added to the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. As Volhynia was the area of activity for various Ukrainian nationalist groups whose aim was to cleanse the land of Poles and Jews, the settlement’s fate was inevitable. On the night of April 22–23, 1943, the Ukrainians from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, together with local peasants, attacked Janowa Dolina. Some 600 people, including children and the elderly, were brutally murdered (see: Massacres of Poles in Volhynia). Most houses were burned to the ground and the settlement was left deserted. This was the end of Janowa Dolina.
