Liuboml is situated 200 miles (320 km) southeast of Warsaw and 290 miles (470 km) west of Kyiv, in a historic region known as Volhynia; not far from the border with Belarus to the north, and Poland to the west. Because of its strategic location at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe, Liuboml had a long history of changing rule, dating back to the 11th century. The territory of Volhynia first belonged to Kyivan Rus', then to the Kingdom of Poland, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire, interwar Poland, the USSR, and finally to sovereign Ukraine.[2]
A local newspaper is published here since 1939.[6]
Before the ensuing Holocaust, Luboml was a town with the highest percentage of Jews anywhere in the country by 1931, exceeding 94% of the total population of over 3,300 people.[7]
InYiddish, the town was called Libivne. During World War II, Liuboml was occupied twice. It remained under the German occupation from 25 June 1941 until 19 July 1944 in the years following the anti-Soviet Operation Barbarossa. It was administered as a part of the Nazi German Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The entire Jewish community of Liuboml was annihilated in a mass shooting action conducted in 1942 on the outskirts of town in the deadliest phase of the Holocaust. The town's Jews along with refugees from western Poland estimated at around 4,500 people, were taken by the German Einsatzgruppen aided by the local Ukrainian collaborators and Auxiliary Police to nearby pits and shot. There were 51 known survivors from the virtually eradicated town. Liuboml was repopulated during the postwar repatriations.[8]
In January 1989 the population was 10 124 people.[9][4]
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. Prior to the Second World War, the grand synagogue was a dominant landmark as well, before its meticulous destruction.
Luboml: My Heart Remembers, a documentary film that describes Jewish life in Liuboml between the two World Wars and mourns the town's Jewish population, lost during World War II.
Sonia Orbuch A Jewish resistance fighter from Luboml.
^the Luboml exhibit (1999). "Luboml". Remembering Luboml — Images of a Jewish Community. Minneapolis Jewish Community Center. Homepage. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
^Любомль // Советский энциклопедический словарь. редколл., гл. ред. А. М. Прохоров. 4-е изд. М., «Советская энциклопедия», 1986. стр.734
^ abЛюбомль // Большой энциклопедический словарь (в 2-х тт.). / редколл., гл. ред. А. М. Прохоров. том 1. М., "Советская энциклопедия", 1991. стр.736
^Gembarzewski, Bronisław (1925). Rodowody pułków polskich i oddziałów równorzędnych od r. 1717 do r. 1831 (in Polish). Warszawa: Towarzystwo Wiedzy Wojskowej. p. 27.
^№ 2640. Советская жизнь // Летопись периодических и продолжающихся изданий СССР 1986—1990. Часть 2. Газеты. М., «Книжная палата», 1994. стр. 346