Kamenka

Kamenka was a Jewish agricultural colony that was established in 1809. One year after its establishment the colony had 1,036 Jews, however many of them starved to death, died of various diseases, or left the colony. By 1897 708 Jews remainined in Kamenka, where they comprised 82 percent of the total population. During the Russian civil war the Jews of Kamenka suffered from violence against their bodies and their property. The colony received continuing support from the American Agro-Joint organization that helped significantly during the Great Famine of the 1930s. In 1926 Kamenka's 787 Jews comprised 91 percent of the total population. Most of them worked in agriculture. A Jewish rural council was established in Kamenka in the 1920s. Around this time the Yiddish school became a seven-year one. In the early 1930s the Jewish kolkhoz Nay Lebn (New Life) was located in Kamenka. At the beginning of the German-Soviet war the inhabitants of Kamenka were prevented from leaving by the Soviet authorities until August 14, 1941, when it was too late. Kamenka was occupied by German troops on about August 16, 1941. Soon after the organization of a pro-German Ukrainian administration the Jews were concentrated in a ghetto on Bolnichnaya Street near the building of the former synagogue. They were forced to wear armbands with the Star of David on their sleeves and to perform forced labor. The ghetto's Jews were humiliated, beaten, and routinely robbed. The killing of Jews began soon after the occupation regime was installed. At the end of April (the beginning of May, according to some testimonies) 1942 the able-bodied Jewish inhabitants of Kamenka were taken to the labor camp of Avdotyevka to work on the construction of the Krivoy Rog-Dnepropetrovsk Road. In May 1942, when the able-bodied Jewish men were being kept alive to work for the Germans, the women, children, and old people were murdered near Zlatoustovka village, together with Jews from other Jewish colonies in the area. The total number of these victims was 540. Later, the last inmates of the Avdotyevka labor camp were force-marched out of the camp and shot. The total number of Kamenka Holocaust victims was approximately 300. Kamenka was liberated by the Red Army on February 2, 1944.