Ternovka

The first mention of Jews living in Ternovka is from 1765. The Jews of the town made a living through trade, shop keeping and manual labor. During the pogroms of the Russian Civil War (1918-1920), eleven Jews were murdered. In 1926, 3,081 Jews lived in Ternovka. All private commercial activities were quashed during the period of Soviet rule. Dozens of Jewish families established a kolkhoz near the town. A Yiddish school with some 300 students operated in the town. Three synagogues also operated in Ternovka, but they were all closed down in 1935. The Germans occupied Ternovka on July 29, 1941. A few Jews fled eastwards. Within a short time, the Germans had established a ghetto, forcing into it the entire Jewish population of the town. Some Jews from Gaysin, Uman and Teplik and other localities who had managed to survive local murder operations also came to the Ternovka ghetto. During the fall and winter of 1941, Germans and Ukrainian police murdered several ghetto inhabitants. A number of men were sent to the Krasnopolka labor camp in the Gaysin region, and did not return. Almost all the Jews of Ternovka perished in the mass murder operation of May 27, 1942. The ghetto was finally liquidated on April 2, 1943. Only a few individuals managed to escape the ghetto and survived until liberation. Ternovka was liberated by the Red Army on March 12, 1944.