Verkhovka

A Jewish presence in Verkhovka is first mentioned in regard to the end of the 18th century. At the end of the following century the town's 251 Jews comprised 18.7 percent of the total population. Most Verkhovka Jews were merchants or artisans.

Under Soviet rule many Jews of Verkhovka, especially younger ones, left the town in search of vocational and educational opportunities in larger towns and cities. In 1926 only 148 Jews remained in the town, where they comprised 10.3 percent of the population.

The Germans occupied Verkhovka in mid-July 1941. Shortly after the start of the occupation Verkhovka's Jews were forced to pay a so-called "contribution" to the occupiers and 10 Jewish men were taken hostage. In the fall of 1941 several hundred Bukovinian and Bessarabian Jews who had been deported from Romanian-controlled territories arrived in Verkhovka. In the late fall or early winter of 1941 all the Jews then living in Verkhovka were deported to the ghetto of Yaltushkov. A few of them were subsequently sent to the labor camp in Guli village and several succeeded in escaping to the Romanian occupation zone of Transnistria. Most of the remaining Jews from Verkhovka were murdered, together with other inmates of the Yaltushkov ghetto, in two murder operations in August and October 1942.

Verkhovka was liberated by the Red Army in late March 1944.