Chronology

• 1093 - Torchin was first mentioned in written sources as part of Kievan Rus, which was the first East Slavic state.  

• 1300s - Torchin became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

• 1340 - Torchin was established as the parish center, the primary ecclesiastical and administrative center for the local parish church.

• 1500s - the Jewish community was founded in Torchin. Other sources say the first Jewish community in Torchin was in the 1400s. 

• 1540 - King Sigismund II Augustus of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania granted the Bishop of Luck rights to transform Torchin into a town and granting Magdeburg law, a medieval German legal code allowing for self-governance.  This established a weekly market and three annual fairs and freed residents for 10 years from customs, bridge, burial, market and other taxes. 

• 1569 - As part of the Union of Lublin, a pact between Poland and Lithuania, King Sigismund II Augustus detached several Ukrainian provinces, including Volhynia (where Torchin is located), from Lithuania and incorporated them directly into the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, forming a single state.  Torchin became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

• 1648–49 - the Torchin Jewish community suffered devastating Cossack attacks where Jews were killed, sold into slavery, or forced to flee as part of the violent Khmelnytsky Uprising.

• 1726  - Council of the Four Lands, the central governing body of the Jewish communities of Poland, which was responsible for allocating resources and lending aid in emergency situations, granted the Jewish community of Torchin a reduction in tax. 

• 1795  - As part of the partionining of Poland, Torchin became part of the Russian imperial empire.

• 1800s - Torchin had 299 houses, 2,675 inhabitants, including 1,941 Jews, and 4 Jewish prayer houses. Torchin also had 21 tanneries and 66 shops, most of them owned by Jews. 

• 1915-1916 - During WWI, under Austrian occupation, Jewish men of Torchin had to perform forced labor outside town.

• 1939 - Torchin became part of Soviet Ukraine. 

• June 24, 1941 - Germany occupied Torchin.  Shortly afterwards, the Jews of Torchin were forced to wear on their chests and backs a Star of David and to perform forced labor. The Germans also set up a Judenrat council and a Jewish police force to assist the Judenrat.

• Jan. 1942 - the Torchin Jews were ordered to pay a tax of gold, clothing and other items.

• Feb. 1942 - the Jews from Torczyn and surrounding areas were concentrated in a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire in the town.  The ghetto housed 2,000 Jews.

• Aug. 22, 1942 - The Torchin ghetto was liquidated.  Nearly 2,000 Jews were ordered to undress and shot in a pit in the Jewish cemetery dug the day before. 

• Feb. 25, 1944 - Torchin was liberated by the Red Army.