Kurman Kemelchi

Jews first settled in Kurman in the 1880s and became invovled in the grain trade. Expelled in 1895, local Jews returned to Kurman after the February Revolution of 1917. In 1939 211 Jews lived in Kurman, comprising 7.33 percent of the total population of the village, which was the administrative center of the ethnic German Telman County. A majority of the Jews succeeded in leaving the area before the arrival of the German army at the end of 1941. On February 17, 1942 about 60 Jews who remained in Kurman-Kemelchi, as well as Jews from the surrounding localities, were murdered by the Germans. Kurman-Kemelchi was liberated by the Red Army on April 12, 1944.