Dunayevtsy

The Jewish community in Dunayevtsy dates from the first half of the 17th century. During the uprising of Bogdan Chmelnitsky almost all the Jews of Dunayevtsy were murdered. In 1748 a blood libel accusation was made against Jews in the town. In 1897 Dunayevtsy had 5,198 Jews, who comprised 66 percent of the total population. Among the prominent Jewish figures who were connected to Dunayevtsy were Yehezkel Kaufmann, a Biblical scholar and Israeli philosopher, and Yaakov Fichman, a Hebrew poet, essayist, and literary critic. In 1919, during the pogroms of the Russian civil war, the Ukrainian army of Symon Petliura killed 12 Jews of Dunayevtsy. Under the Soviets at the end of 1920s private businesses were closed down and most local Jews shifted to work in cooperatives and state-owned small factories. In the 1920s two Jewish collective farms, one named after Lazar Kaganovich and the other called "Der Yidisher Poyer" [The Jewish Farmer], were founded near Dunayevtsy. The town had a Yiddish school until 1938, and also a small Yiddish library. In 1939 the Jewish population of 4,478, comprised 68 percent of the total population. On July 11, 1941 the Germans occupied the town and only a few Jews managed to leave.Several days afterwards the Jews were ordered to wear yellow badges on their chests and backs. During this period some Jewish refugees from Poland and Bessarabia arrived in the town. A Jewish council was appointed and the Jews were ordered to register and to live in an ghetto that was not fenced in. According to several testimonies, the members of the Jewish council were taken hostage by the Germans to force the local Jews to hand over all the food stuffs they had. The Jews were also made to perform various kinds of forced labor, such as carrying heavy stones, repairing roads, etc. Tombstones from the Jewish cemetery were used to pave the roads. The Jews were often abused while performing hard labor, for example, burning pitch was poured on old men who were unable to cope with their tasks and Jewish men were ordered to cut off their beards. An old rabbi of Dunayevtsy died after being abused. In October and November 1941 a number of taxes were imposed on Jews; they were ordered to hand over their gold and other valuables, clothing, and furniture. In March 1942, after being accused of abandoning their work at the Dunayevtsy train station, 19 Jews were hanged by Ukrainian policemen, on the town's main street. On May 8 (or, according to other testimonies, on May 2 or in April), 1942, after a selection of the Jewish population had been carried out at the former machine-tractor station, about 2,500 Jews were taken to the site of the former phosphorus mine outside the town and buried alive. The day after this murder operation the houses of the victims were marked and their belongings were taken away. Following this mass murder the ghetto, where local Jews were concentrated, along with Jews from the nearby towns of Minkovtsy, Zinkov, Vinkovtsy, and Velikyi Zhvanchik, was surronded by a fence. On October 19, 1942, during the liquidation of the ghetto, about 3,000 Jews were taken outside the town and shot to death at the Solonichnik forest. Gebietskommissar (regional commissar) Eduard Eggers was in charge of these three murder operations. Dunayevtsy was liberated by the Red Army on March 31, 1944.