Bruckenthal () was a village (a ''colony'') located in what is now Sokal Raion,

Lviv Oblast Lviv Oblast ( uk, Льві́вська о́бласть, translit=Lvivska oblast, ), also referred to as Lvivshchyna ( uk, Льві́вщина, ), ). The name of each oblast is a relational adjective—in English translating to a noun adjunct w ...

, of

Western Ukraine Western Ukraine or West Ukraine ( uk, Західна Україна, Zakhidna Ukraina or , ) is the territory of Ukraine linked to the former Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, which was part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Austria ...

. The village was established in the course of the Josephine colonization by German Catholic settlers in 1786. In the interwar period the village belonged to Poland, and was a seat of gmina (a municipality) including several other villages. In January 1940 the majority of the inhabitants moved out ( Heim ins Reich). The empty houses were taken over mostly by local Poles. In the late March 1944 the village was razed by

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police The ''Ukrainische Hilfspolizei'' or the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police ( ua, Українська допоміжна поліція, Ukrains'ka dopomizhna politsiia) was the official title of the local police formation (a type of hilfspolizei) set up b ...

and

Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army ( uk, Українська повстанська армія, УПА, translit=Ukrayins'ka povstans'ka armiia, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and later partisan formation. During World ...

, killing over 200 people.

Refugees

From the early 1910s, regional unrest led to numerous residents leaving for Germany and America, often to the upper American Midwest, joining other

Germans from Russia The German minority population in Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stemmed from several sources and arrived in several waves. Since the second half of the 19th century, as a consequence of the Russification policies and compulsory military ...

in the "German Triangle" of the central Dakotas. Others were not so lucky, and ended up as refugees during

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Afterwards, letters and money were sent between relatives on the west and eastern side of the iron curtain, but by the 1970s communication ceased, possibly due to Russian integration of cultural Germans.

Notes

Ghost towns in Ukraine Villages in Chervonohrad Raion {{Lviv-geo-stub