Chemerovtsy

The earliest reference to the presence of Jews in Chemerovtsy dates to the 16th century. In 1897, the town was home to 1,231 Jews, who made up 41 percent of the total population. Under Soviet rule, a Jewish local council and collective farm were established in the area. Until the late 1930s, there was a Yiddish school in the town. In 1939, its Jewish population stood at 1,139. Following the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, the Jews of Chemerovtsy fled to the town of Kupin, but were unable to proceed further eastward because of the rapid German advance, and had to return to their home town. German troops occupied Chemerovtsy on July 9, 1941. A Jewish council appointed by the Germans was used to collect gold from the Jewish community. According to one testimony, in the first months of the German occupation a group of able-bodied men were ordered to bring some horses from the nearby collective farm; shortly afterward, these men were murdered. During the same period, the members of a German murder squad and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen murdered 161 Jews on the outskirts of the town. The remaining Jews of Chemerovtsy were transferred, apparently in the fall of 1941, to the Kamenets-Podolsk Ghetto, where they were murdered a year later. On October 4, 1942, eighteen Jews who had been found in hiding were shot in the Market (Bazarnaya) Square in the town. Chemerovtsy was liberated by the Red Army on March 25, 1944.