Zinkov

Jewish settlement in Zinkov was mentioned first regarding the beginning of the 16th century. During the uprisings of Bogdan Chmelnitsky in 1648 and 1651 the Jewish community of Zinkov was destroyed. In 1734 Jews who had resettled in Zinkov were murdered by the Haidamaks. Apparently in the first half of the 18th century a large synagogue was built in Zinvkov. With the arrival in the town in the early 19th century of Avraham Yehoshua Heschel and his son Rabbi Yitzchak Meir of Zinkov the town became one of the leading centers of Hasidic Judaism in the Podolia region. In 1897 the Jewish population of 3,719 comprised 53 percent of the total population. Under the Soviets a Jewish rural council operated in the town. In the early 1930s a kolkhoz "Novoye Zhityo' ("new life" in Ukrainian) was established and 160 Jewish families worked there. Many Jewish artisans and craftsmen worked in state-owned cooperatives. The town had a Yiddish school until the mid-1930s. In 1939 the Jewish population of 2,248 comprised 35 percent of the total population. The Germans occupied Zinkov on July 10, 1941. A few Jews, among them some young mothers with small children, succeeded in leaving Zinkov a short time before the Germans arrived. Right after the occupation began the German took 20 Jewish men hostage: some of them were hanged while others were released. The Jewish community was allowed to bury the victims only several days later. The beards and side locks of religious Jews, including the town's rabbi, were torn or cut off by Ukrainians policemen and Germans, who called this "taking the Jews to the barber." During this procedure the Jews were also beaten. In August 1941 a town elder and a Jewish council were appointed. Some of the latter's members were taken hostages by the Germans to force the local Jews to pay a ransom. The Jewish population was ordered to hand over to the Germans clothes and a large amount of gold. Jews over 10 years old were obliged to wear a yellow Star of David on their chests and backs and were forbidden to walk on sidewalks or draw water from the central well. Skilled workers were allowed to practice their trades but were required to pay for labor permits. Young able-bodied men were taken for road construction and agricultural work. In August also the Jews were ordered to move into the ghetto that had been set up. In the fenced off ghetto the mortality rate escalated as overcrowding, starvation, and poor sanitation contributed to the spread of contagious diseases. On May 9, 1942, about 600 Jews, many of them sick, elderly, or women with children, were shot to death outside the town. A group of artisans and skilled workers who had been taken to be shot was released and returned to the ghetto. After this murder operation the sick and elderly people were concentrated in one house in the ghetto and shot to death shortly afterwards. Their bodies were buried at the same location. Apparently during this period a group of able-bodied men was sent to labor camps in Proskurov, Leznyevo, and near the Dunayevtsy railway station. Some of them were later murdered. On August 4, 1942 1,882 Jews from Zinkov were shot to death at the same murder site. After the murder Ukrainian residents of Zinkov looted Jewish homes and property. Apparently a group of about 150 Jewish workers who had remained in the ghetto after the second murder operation, as well as some Jews who had hidden during the operation but had been found, were shortly afterwards sent to the labor camps in Proskurov and near the Dunayevtsy railway station. Zinkov was liberated by the Red Army at the end of March 1944.