A Jewish community existed in this location from the 18th century. In 1897 the Jewish population of Krasilov was 2,563, comprising 37 percent of the total population. During the Russian civil war (1918-1920) 15 Jews were murdered in pogroms in the town. During the 1920s and the 1930s a Yiddish school operated Karsilov. In 1939 Krasilov's 1,250 Jews comprised 17 percent of the total population.
Only a few Jews managed to leave before the Germans occupied Krasilov on July 8, 1941. Shortly afterwards a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire was set up on one street. The Jews were ordered to wear yellow badges on...
In 1944, shortly after the liberation of Krasilov town and Krasilov County by the Red Army, the surviving Jews from the town came to the mass graves in the Manevtsy forest and fenced them off. Sometime afterwards three monuments were erected at these three mass graves. Two of them are identical and located in the forest. The third one is located in a field next to the forest. Jews from Krasilov came to the site annually to commemorate their dear ones.
In July 1942 Ukrainian auxiliary policemen arrived in the town and on the pretext of resettling them, collected at the town square all the Jews, mainly women, children, and elderly people, who had been incarcerated in the ghetto. Then they were taken on foot to the forest near the village of Manevtsy, about 15 kilometers north of Krasilov. Upon their arrival at the site, the Jews were ordered to strip naked. The men were made to dig three large pits and then the victims were forced to lie down in groups in the pits, where they were shot to death by the German unit. After each group was shot to death, it was...
In 1944, shortly after the liberation of the area by the Red Army, the mass graves in the Manevtsy forest were fenced off by surviving Jews from Bazaliya, Antoniny, Krasilov, Kulchiny, and other nearby towns. Later three monuments were erected at the murder site. Two of them are identical and located in the forest. The third one is located in a field next to the forest.
In 1944, shortly after the liberation of the area by the Red Army, the mass graves in the Manevtsy forest were fenced off by surviving Jews from Antoniny, Krasilov, Kulchiny, and other nearby towns. Sometime afterwards, three monuments were erected at the murder site. Two of them are identical and located in the forest. The third one is located in a field next to the forest.
After the war a monument was erected at the site of the mass murder of Kulchiny's Jews. The black stone bears an inscription in Russian that says: "Eternal memory to the victims of fascism. 1942." There is no reference to the Jewish origin of the victims.
Jews began to settle in Kulchiny around the beginning of the 18th century. Most of Kulchiny's Jews were small-scale traders or artisans.
In the 1920s a Jewish rural council (selsovet) and a Yiddish school were established in Kulchiny. In the mid-1920s about 1,200 Jews lived in Kulchiny, comprising 39 percent of the total population. However,during the following years many Jews left Kulchiny for large cities.
The Germans occupied Kulchiny in mid-July 1941. Together with the Germans, members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) arrived in the town and immediately began to mistreat and...
On September 21, 1942, which was Yom Kippur (in August, according to other sources), early in the morning German gendarmes and Ukrainian policemen from the town of Antoniny arrived in Kulchiny. All the Jews were driven out of the ghetto to the market square. They were told that they were being taken for work. Those unable to walk were loaded onto carts; the rest were formed into a column and all of them were taken to a forest near the village of Manevtsy, about 10 kilometers from Kulchiny. Those who tried to escape were shot on the spot. Some mothers tried in vain to save their children. At the murder site the...
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...
In July 1942 the inmates of the ghetto, including people capable of work, as well as elderly people, women, and little children, were taken by Ukrainian auxiliary police to the forest near Manevtsy village, located southeast of Antoniny, and shot to death. Afterwards the graves were covered with earth. Gebietskommissar (regional commissar) Gerald Shefer was in charge of this murder operation.
