Novozybkov

Jews settled in Novozybkov in the first half of the 18th century. In 1897 the town's 3,836 Jews comprised almost a quarter of the total population. In 1905 the local Jews suffered a pogrom. By 1939 the number of Jews declined to 3,129 or 13 per cent of the total population. Novozybkov was occupied by German troops on August 16, 1941. Most of the Jewish population was murdered in the winter of 1942 in the Karkhovskiy Forest. Jews were probably also shot in the area of a local medical center that had been taken over for Gestapo use. Soviet sources report another mass murder operation against the Jews took place on February 17, 1942, when more than 800 Jews were rounded up and taken to the match factory club house. The victims were locked up and then shot to death the next day. The exact murder site is unknown. The town was liberated by the Red Army on September 25, 1943.