Donetsk “Mushketivske” Municipal Cemetery – Jewish Section

The cemetery was founded in 1929, the earliest Jewish burials date to 1930. Older tombstones were brought to this cemetery from other cemeteries that are now closed.

Donets’k (Ukr. XX, Rus. XX, until 1924 Yuzivka, Ukr. Юзівка, Rus. Юзовка, in 1924–61 Stalino, Ukr. Сталіно, Rus. Сталино) had a Jewish population of 3,168 in 1897 (11% of the total population). A three-day pogrom broke out in 1905. In 1910, the number of Jews reached 11,732 (24%). In the 1910s, the city had 3 synagogues, a Jewish cemetery, 5 private Jewish schools, and a Talmud Torah. Under the Soviets, the city became a major industrial centre. Although the Jewish population grew, its relative proportion to the rest of the city’s population decreased. In 1939, 24,991 Jews lived in the city, merely constituting 5% of the population. After the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, most of the Jews were able to evacuate, although some 3,000 Jews remained. In the spring of 1942, the Jews were confined in a ghetto in a quarry and soon murdered. The Jewish community was re-established after the war. There were 22,300 Jews living in the city in 1959. While the 1990s saw a wave of mass Jewish emigration, community life still cointued. Donets’k had several Jewish religious, cultural, and educational institutions. According to the 2001 census, there were 5,087 Jews in Donets’k.

Sources:
Spector, Shmuel, Geoffrey Wigoder, and Elie Wiesel. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust. New York: NYU Press, 2001.
Katsenelson, Lev, and David Gintsburg, eds. Evreiskaia entsiklopediia: Svod znanii o evreistvie i ego kulturie v proshlom i nastoiashchem. Saint Petersburg: Brockhaus–Efron, 1908.
Geoffrey Megargee, ed. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2009
Rossiiskaia Evreiskaia Enciklopedia. “Donetsk, gorod v Donetskoi obl.” jewsencyclopedia.com/index.php/ДОНЕЦК,_город_в_Донецкой_обл.
All-Ukrainian population census. ukrcensus.gov.ua
Jewish.ru. “Donetskaia «Khevra Kadisha» vosstanavlivaet staroe evreiskoe kladbishche.” jewish.ru/ru/news/articles/78977/