Antoniny

During the 1920s and 1930s Antoniny was the center of a Jewish rural council. In 1939 110 Jews lived in Antoniny, comprising about 4 percent of the total population. The Germans occupied the town on July 7, 1941 and designated it the administrative capital of the area. The ghettos set up in the town and in the nearby village of Orlintsy were surrounded with barbed wire. Many of the Jews died of starvation, cold, or forced labor. In July 1942, on the orders of Gebietskommissar (regional commissar) Gerald Shefer, the Germans murdered Jews (mostly women, elderly people, and children) from Antoniny and Orlintsy in the forest near Manyevtsy village. Jews from Krasilov, Kulchiny, Bazaliya and other nearby towns were also murdered at this location. Antoniny was liberated by the Red Army on March 4, 1944.