Busk, Ukraine
Busk is a small town in Ukraine (E. Galicia); in Poland until 1772 and from 1918 to 1939. Jews were known there before the 16th century. In 1518 the king exempted them from taxes for one
Holocaust Period
About 1,900 Jews lived in Busk when German forces entered in July 1941. Jews were immediately kidnapped for slave labor; the free movement in public of Jews was restricted, and Jews were physically attacked. A *Judenrat was set up, headed by Isaac Margalit. It attempted to organize the Jews for the emergency, in particular by ensuring work for the entire community, in the belief that thereby deportation could be avoided. The Germans carried out the first Aktion on Yom Kippur 1942 (Sept. 21), executing around 700 Jews in a village near Zloczow. In November a ghetto was set up for all the Jews in the area. A resistance movement, headed by Jacob Eisenberg, collected arms inside the ghetto and made plans for a breakthrough to the forests, but these could not be carried out, because on May 19–21, 1943, the ghetto was liquidated. There is a society of former residents of Busk in Israel and a B'nai B'rith branch in New York comprising former residents of the town.
[Aharon Weiss]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Russko-Yevreyskiy Arkhiv, 3 (1908), 96, 103–4, 126; I. Schipper, Di Kulturgeshikhte fun di Yidn in Poyln beys Mitlalter (1926), index; T. Brustin-Bernstein, in: Bleter far Geshikhte, 6 no. 3 (1953), 45–153; Sefer Busk (Heb., Yid., Eng., and Pol., 1965).
Source: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.