Sukhari

According to Russian governmental data, 377 Jews, 50 percent of the total population, lived in the village of Sukhari in 1880. During the Soviet period, many Jewish families worked in the Kommunisticheskiy Manifest kolkhoz. Others were craftsmen and traders; after the abolition of private trade, the latter became craftsmen as well. During the urbanization period of the 1920-1930s, many of the youth, especially young men, left Sukhari for the cities. Thus on the eve of World War II, most of the Jewish population of the village were women, children and elderly. In 1939, some Jewish refuges arrived in Sukhari from Poland. Some weeks after the beginning of World War II, the Germans occupied the village. All the Jews were killed in two murder operations that took place in the autumn of 1941 and in February 1942. The Red Army liberated Sukhari on June 26, 1944.