Jews began to settle in Pochep in the 17th century and between 1791 and 1917 the town was part of the Pale of Settlement. Periodically the Jewish community of Pochep experienced anti-Jewish violance. In 1648 most of the Pochep Jews were murdered by the troops of Chmielnitsky; later Jews of town sufferred from the pogroms of 1905 and from attacks and looting on the part of the various sides involved in the Russian Civil War (1918-1920).
In the 1920s most Pochep Jews were merchants or craftsmen, while some Jewish family engaged in agriculture. A Jewish kolkhoz called Emes was established in the...
On March 15-16 (16-17, according to another source), 1942 all the inmates of the two ghettos - men, women, children, and old people - a total of approximately 1,800 people, were taken by the Germans and local policemen to anti-tanks ditches near the canning factory. There Jews were stood in rows at the edge of the ditches and shot by the Germans and the policemen. With the threat of death the Germans prohibited the local inhabitants from coming near the place.
After the liberation of Pochep by the Red Army, in order to prevent vandalism, the Soviet authorities ordered the ditches where the Jews were murdered to be covered with earth. A small monument was erected at the site. However, it was soon desecrated by unknown persons, who stole the upper part of it and destroyed the fence surrounding the monument. In the 1960s a new monument, with Hebrew and Russian inscriptions, was erected. The Hebrew inscription says: "A memorial to our Jewish brothers, 1,846 inhabitants of Pochep who were brutally murdered and buried alive by the accursed Hitler's fascists on 16-17 [sic]...
