"Lechovitz" or "Lechevitz" (Yiddish)
"Lechowitz", "Lyakhovtsy", "Liachovitz", "Lachowce", "Lechowicz," "Lakhovits," "Lakhovtsy", "Belogor'ye" (Russian) "Bilohir'ya" or "Bilohiria" (Ukrainian)
Lat: 50° 00', Long: 26° 25'
The purpose of this web page is to provide information for people interested in Jewish heritage from the town of Lechowitz. I also hope that descendants may recognize a name or a face and help add to the scant information for this town.
Researchers of Lechowitz have significant challenges related to the town name. Jewish residents knew the town as "Lechowitz" or "Lechevitz," but there were other towns with the same or similar names. The larger town of Lechovich (Lyakovichi) in the Belarus is where most researchers find themselves. In fact, the surname database in the Belarus town mistakenly contains at least some names of people who were actually from the Ukraine Lechowitz. Further complicating the matter, our Ukrainian Lechowitz was re-named to "Belogorye" by the Soviet government after World War II to make the town name sound more Russian and less Polish. The name "Belogorye" was a variation of the name "Belogorodke," a nearby town. The Ukrainian version of the town name is now Bilohiria. To add even further to the confusion, both the old version of the town's name (Lechowitz, Lechevitz, Lyakhovtsy, Lachowce....) and the new version (Bilohiria, Belogor'ye, Belogoria, Bilohiriya....) have multiple spelling variations. You may have to try every variation to find your results. This web page uses the names Bilohiria and Lechowitz, depending on context. As if this isn't complicated enough, consider the fact that our Bilohiria/Lechowitz was at one time part of Russia, then Poland, then the Soviet Union, then the Ukraine....
Bilohirya as shown on Mapquest (choose Khmelnytskyi Oblast)
Bilohirya as shown on Google maps
Search the JewishGen Ukraine Database
Search the JewishGen Family Finder page for Bilohirya
List of holocaust victims in the Yad Vashem database for Lyakhovtsy (you may have to search using other spelling variations)
Testimony on the liquidation of the ghetto in Lechowitz
Records Index for LYAKHOVICHI BELARUS (this is a completely different town, but due to the similarity in names, this database lumps in records for Lechowitz/Bilohirya Ukraine)
Concordance of Names in the Kremenets area, which contains some listings for Lechowitz, Ukraine
The Routes to Roots Foundation www.rtrfoundation.org has marriage and death records for "Belogorye" from the ZAGS office in Khmelnitsky. Also check the records for Lyakhovichi (14 record groups from 5 archives in 3 countries).
The Grossman Project web page for Kornitsa contains valuable information about Lechowitz
Article about the settlement of landsmen in the American Midwest
Nebraska Jewish Historical Society (NJHS) issue of Summer/Fall 2010 has two excellent articles about Lechowitz
Compiled by Miriam Kirshner
Copyright © 2018 Miriam Kirshner