Dzhankoy

The first Jews began to settle in Dzhankoy in the 19th century. In 1897 109 Jews lived in Dzhankoy, comprising 11.4 percent of the total population. In the first years after 1917 branches of the Zionist organizations Maccabi, Tseirei Zion and Hehaluts, were established in Dzhankoi. A prominent role in organizing the Hehaluts movement in the town was played by Yosef Trumpeldor. In 1920s Jewish agricultural settlements were founded in the Dzhankoy area with the assistance of Agro-Joint. The latter sponsored various Jewish economic, cultural, and health care projects in Dzhankoy and the surrounding area until this activity in the USSR was halted in 1938. In 1939 1,397 Jews lived in Dzhankoy, comprising 7.1 percent of the total population. Dzhankoy was occupied by German troops on October 31, 1941. Most of the town's Jews succeeded in leaving before the arrival of the Germans. Early in November 1941 the mayor who was appointed by the Germans was ordered to establish a ghetto for Jews who remained in Dzhankoy. The establishment of the ghetto was preceeded by the shooting of 15 Jewish men accused of "creating unrest and threatening the local population." The ghetto was established in the second half of December 1941 in the loft of the local diary (today on Internatsionalnaya Street), where 700 Jews from town of Dzhankoy, as well as Jews deported from other parts of Crimean peninsula, were incarcerated. The ghetto, which served as a labor camp, was guarded by local Tartar policemen. The inmates were forced to perform all kinds of work, such as the construction of the Kerch-Armyansk highway and other debilitating labor both within and outside of Dzhankoy. The ghetto also held non-Jews accused of aiding Jews, as well as Soviet prisoners of war. On December 30, 1941 (or in January 1942, according to another source) 443 of its inmates were murdered. Some Jews who escaped this massacre, along with Jews who had been brought over some time to Dzhankoy from other places in Crimea, were murdered in the town and the vicinity during 1942. Thus, in January or February 1942 450 Krymchaks (the original Jews in Crimea) were murdered, while in March 1942 241 Jews were executed. Dzhankoy was liberated by the Red Army on April 11, 1944.