Salnitsa

Although the first recorded reference to a Jewish presence in Salnitsa relates to the late 18th century, the number of Salnitsa Jews was very small until the mid-19th century. In 1897 Salnitsa's 903 Jews comprised 24.4 percent of the town's total population. Most local Jews were artisans or merchants; a few of them engaged in agriculture. The number of Salnitsa Jews decreased during World War I and the civil war. 567 Jews lived in Salnitsa in 1926, when they comprised 11.7 percent of town's total population. Many of them found employment at the local brick factory or in the agricultural cooperative. Many younger Salnitsa Jews left the town in the 1920s and 1930s in search of new educational and vocational opportunities. In the early 1930s the Jews of Salnitsa suffered the ravages of the Great Famine. A mutual aid fund was established to alleviate their suffering. Until the late 1930s many of Salnitsa's Jews received money from relatives overseas. In the 1920s Salnitsa had a Jewish town council that supported various cultural and educational activities in Yiddish. In the 1920s and 1930s a Yiddish school named after Sholom Aleichem existed in Salnitsa. After the start of the German invasion of Soviet Union Jewish refugees arrived in Salnitsa. The town was occupied by German forces in July 1941. Most of the town's approximately 450 Jews were deported to Ulanov in late 1941 and in the first half of 1942 and were murdered there, together with local Jews, in June 1942. Salnitsa was liberated by the Red Army in the first half of 1944.