PAVOLOCH

PAVOLOCH, townlet in Zhitomir district, Ukraine. A Jewish community is first known to have existed in the townlet at the beginning of the 17th century. In 1736 the haidamacks carried out a pogrom in Pavoloch, massacring 35 Jews and engaging in plunder. In 1753 three local Jews, including the rabbi, were involved in a blood libel , known as the Zhitomir Trial. They were executed, and all the town's Jews were obliged to pay a high fine. Records of 1765 show 1,041 Jews as paying the poll tax in Pavoloch and its vicinity. Jews numbered 2,113 in 1847, and in 1897 the number rose to 3,391 (42% of the total population). During the Civil War the townlet declined and most of its inhabitants left. Jewish residents numbered 1,837 (88.2% of the population) in 1926, dropping to 639 by 1939. The Germans entered the town in late July 1941. They found 156 Jews and murdered them. The others probably managed to escape. There is no information on Jews living in Pavoloch after World War II. (Yehuda Slutsky / Shmuel Spector (2nd ed.)