Staro Konstantinov

The Jewish community in Starokonstantinov dates back to the sixteenth century. The town’s Jews suffered Cossack onslaughts during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the end of the nineteenth century, more than half of the town’s population was Jewish.

The “father of Yiddish theater,” Avrom Goldfaden (1840–1908), lived in Starokonstantinov. During the Soviet period, a Yiddish school operated in the town, but it was closed at the end of the 1930s. In January 1939, 6,743 Jews were living in Starokonstantinov, accounting for 31 percent of the total population.

With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 22, 1941, only some of Starokonstantinov’s Jews managed to escape. The Germans occupied Starokonstantinov on July 8, 1941 and, from the first days of the occupation, they tortured the town’s Jewish population. In late August 1941, the Jews of Starokonstantinov were concentrated in a ghetto; they were soon joined by other Jews from nearby towns including Gritsev, Ostropol and Staraya Sinyava. The Jewish population of Starokonstantinov and its surroundings were killed in a number of murder operations from August 1941 until November 1942.

The Red Army liberated Starokonstantinov on March 9, 1944.