Yemilchino

In 1897 the Jewish population of Yemilchino amounted to 1,049 people or 42 percent of its total population. In the late 19th – early 20th centuries the Jews made their living from small trade or artisanship. During the civil war the Jews of Yemilchino suffered from pogroms, one of which was carried out by troops of the Directorate on April 1919. During the 1920s some Jews left Yemilchin to join Jewish kolkhozes organized in the Crimea. In 1926 a Jewish kolkhoz was established in Yemilchino as well. At about the same time a Yiddish seven-grade school was established in the village. Although it was closed in 1937, its Jewish classes remained within the framework of the local secondary school. In 1926 there were Yemilchino's 1, 383 Jews comprised 38 percent of the total population. Under the Soviets the local synagogue building was turned into a club. In 1939 the Jewish population of 1,115 comprised 21 percent of the total population. Yemilchino was occupied on July 2, 1941. In August 1941 the Jews of Yemilchino, and of the nearby villages of Moklyaki, Seredy, Stepanovka and, probably of Gorbovo as well, were put into the ghetto located on the premises of a former military unit. The ghetto area surrounded by barbed wire was adjacent to the territory of the POW camp. Apparently, the Jews of Yemilchino and of some nearby villages were shot in several murder operations between July and October 1941. Among the victims was a group of 38 Jews shot shortly before August 19, 1941, as revenge for the wounding of an SS officer. The exact location of the shooting is unknown. On November 13, 1943, Yemilchino was temporally liberated by the partisan unit of Naumov and remained under its control until December 5, 1943. The town was finally liberated by the Red Army on January 3, 1944.