Kalinovka

Jews lived in Kalinovka since the second half of the 18th century. In 1897 1,052 Jews lived in Kalinovka, which became a town, and they constituted 41.12 percent of the total population. On the eve of World War I Jews dominated economic life in Kalinovka, owning most of the shops and warehouses in the town and a mill.

Kalivnovka Jews sufferred greatly from World War I and the calamities of revolutionary years and civil war in Russia. In March and July 1919 Ukrainian troops of Symon Petliura staged pogroms in Kalinovka, killing 8 Jews. During the early years of Soviet rule the occupational structure of Kalinovka Jews started to change. In the 1920s and 1930s Kalinovka had a Jewish ethnic council which opened a Yiddish school, which was closed down in 1936. In 1939 979 Jews lived in Kalinovka, comprising 19.5 percent of the town's total population. In September 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, a number of Jewish refugees from Poland arrived in Kalinovka.

After the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, some Jewish families from Kalinovka tried to flee to the Soviet interior, but few succeeded. The town and the railway lines passing through it were subjected to heavy German bombing, which claimed victims among both Jewish and non-Jewish residents of Kalinovka. Kalinovka was occupied by German troops on July 22, 1941 and the abuse and exploitation of the local Jews started immediately. Soon after the start of the occupation the Jews of Kalinovka were forcibly concentrated into an area on one of town's streets. Even though the area was not fenced off, the Jews were forbidden to leave it. Most of Kalinovka's Jews, about 500 people, were murdered, together with about 200 Jews from the area, in late May 1942 a short distance from the town. Several dozen skilled workers who were spared during this massacre were murdered in August of the same year.

Throughout 1942 and 1943 Germans and Ukrainian auxiliaries hunted down and murdered those Jews of Kalinovka who attempted to hide. Only a few Kalinovka Jews survived the war. There was an attempt to organize resistance among the Kalinovka Jews prior to the May 1942 massacre. The resistance group was aided by Soviet partisans operating in the Kalinovka area. The resistance activities ceased with the killing of most of Kalinovka's Jews.

Kalinovka was liberated by the Red Army on March 14, 1944.