Liuboml

This page deals with a city in Ukraine. For the film named after this city, see Luboml (film).

Flag of Liuboml

Liuboml (Ukrainian and Russian: Любомль, translit. Ljuboml’, Polish and German: Luboml) is a town located in the Volyn Oblast (province) in western Ukraine, close to the border with Poland. It serves as the administrative center of the Lyubomlskyi Raion (district). Population: 10,246 (2013 est.)^[1].

Overview

Liuboml is situated 200 miles (320 km) southeast of Warsaw, Poland, in a region known as Volhynia. Lithuania is to its north, Russia to its east, and Poland to its west. Because of its location on the border, Liuboml has a long history — dating back to the 11th century — of changing rule.

In the 1930s this market town included a thriving Jewish community of around 4,000. In Yiddish, the town was called Libivne. During World War II, Liuboml was under German occupation from 25 June 1941 until 19 July 1944, and administered as a part of Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The entire Jewish community was annihilated in the Holocaust in 1942. The town's Jews and refugees, estimated in number at around 4500, were taken by German Einsatzgruppen troops together with local Ukrainian collaborators and police to nearby pits and shot. There were 51 known survivors from the town.

The town's landmarks include St. George's Church, built in the 16th century in place of a 13th-century Orthodox church which previously occupied the site, and the Trinity Church, which goes back to 1412, but was subsequently rebuilt, with a belfry from 1640. At the time of the second world war, the grand synagogue was a dominant landmark as well.