Krasnopolye

The first Jews began to settle in Krasnopolye in the early 18th century. About 100 Jewish houses and stores were looted in a pogrom in 1920 that was carried out by local hoodlums.

In the 1920s most Krasnopolye Jews were artisans or small-scale traders. During this period a number of Jewish families engaged in agriculture, first in Jewish cooperatives, later in the Jewish kolkhoz "Frayhayt," that was established near Krasnopolye. There was a Yiddish school in the town that operated until mid-1938.

In 1939 1,181 Jews remained in Krasnopolye, comprising 33 percent of the total population.

Krasnopolye was occupied by the Germans on August 15, 1941. By then many Jews had succeeded in escaping. Almost immediately after the occupation began, the Jews of Krasnopolye were concentrated in a ghetto on Bannyy Lane.The ghetto inmates were humiliated, abused,and robbed of their possessions. The Jews of Krasnopolye were murdered in several murder operations between September-October 1941 and June-July 1942. According to a single testimony, one local Jewish woman who was a doctor was not killed until the spring of 1943.

Krasnopolye was liberated by the Red Army on October 1, 1943.