Vinkovtsy

The Jewish community in Vinkovtsy (previously Vonkovtsy or Zatonskoye) was founded in the 18th century. In 1897 the town's 1,768 Jews comprised 56 percent of the total population. Under Soviet rule Vinkovtsy was the center of a Jewish council. At the end of the 1920s two Jewish kolkohozes – Nay Lebn ("our life" in Yiddish) and "Novine" ("new one" in Yiddish) were operating near the town. The town had a Yiddish school until the late 1930s. In 1939 the Jewish population of 1,745 comprised almost 40 percent of the total population. A total of 4,314 Jews lived in Vinkovtsy County. Several Jewish families succeeded in leaving the town before the German forces arrived. The Germans occupied the town on July 11, 1941. The Jews were made to wear yellow patches with the Star of David on their chests and backs and to perform forced labor. During this period a ghetto, fenced off with barbed wire, was set up in the town. Several families had to live in each apartment. Many Jews were abused. For example, some of the men were made to form a human "bridge" so the Germans could walk over them. The beards and sidelocks of many Jews were torn or cut off and the Jews were not allowed to walk on the sidewalks. On May 9, 1942 450 Jews from Vinkovtsy were shot to death at a ravine outside town. In the summer (or, according to a ChGK document, on April 14) of 1942 another 1,875 Jews were shot to death in a field outside the town. On August 6, 1942 an SD murder squad from Kamenets-Podolsk shot to death, apparently at the same location, the few Jews remaining in the town. According to one testimony after the shooting a small group of young Jewish men and women was taken to a labor camp in Proskurov. An anti-Nazi underground movement that included six Jews among its 11 members was active during the occupation. On April 12, 1942 they were all arrested. They were executed in Dunayevtsy on June 5. Vinkovtsy was liberated by the Red Army at the end of March 1944.