Novo Vitebsk

Novo-Vitebsk was founded in the 1820s as a Jewish agricultural settlement by migrants from Vitebsk. In 1897 849 Jews lived in Novo-Vitebsk, comprising 86.6 percent of the total population. In the 1920s, due to the calamities of the Russian civil war, starvation, and the migration of predominantly young Jews to the large urban centers, the Jewish population of Novo-Vitebsk declined significantly. In 1926 556 Jews lived in the town, comprising 47.8 percent of the population.

In the 1930s there were two Jewish kolkhozes, "Trudovik" and "Khleborob", which later were transformed into a single Jewish kolkhoz named "Kombayn," and two mixed Jewish-Ukrainian kolkhozes in Novo-Vitebsk.

After the start of the Soviet-German War only some of the Jewish inhabitants managed to leave Novo-Vitebsk. The town was occupied by German forces on August 18, 1941. Almost immediately the remaining Jews were forced into a ghetto consisting of one of the town's streets. Soon afterwards the Germans shot some Jews, as well as non-Jewish members of the Communist Party and the Komsomol (the Communist youth organization). In April 1942 the last local able-bodied Jews were sent to work on the construction of the Dnepropetrovsk-Krivoy Rog highway and, then, they were killed. The remaining Novo-Vitebsk Jews were murdered at the end of May 1942, together with Jews from Novo-Kovno, near the village of Novo-Podolsk .

Novo-Vitebsk was liberated by the Red Army in the fall of 1943.