Before World War II, Dovhe was located in the Czechoslovakian section of the Carpathian mountain region, near the borders of Hungary and Poland. Dovhe’s population of 5,000 residents was diverse, composed of people with Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, and Ukrainian backgrounds. About 13 percent of them were Jewish. The people of Dovhe worked in two factories or in small local businesses. Every Wednesday was market day, when the peasants from the countryside would bring vegetables and livestock and the people of Dovhe would set up their wares to sell and barter.
The community of 105 Jewish families was highly organized. Nearly all were Orthodox, following the traditions of their ancestors, who settled in the area in the mid-19th century. The children were sent to heder, a traditional religious elementary school, and some of the more advanced ones went on to the local yeshiva, an institute of higher learning that focused exclusively on classical Jewish texts.
In 1939, the region was taken over by Hungary, and after the war Dovhe became part of the Soviet Ukraine. Of the approximately 620 Jews who had lived in Dovhe, only 90, including Sol, survived the Holocaust.
