Khmelnytskyy Old Jewish Cemetery

The cemetery was established in the first half of the 19th century and was operational till the early 20th century. It first appears on the 1824 city plan and later on a Russian map of the region from the 1890s. Today, no visible traces of the cemetery or its boundaries remain.

There was a Jewish presence in the city from 1629. The Jewish community suffered during the Khmelnitsky massacres in 1648-49. In 1765, 750 Jews lived in Khmel’nyts’kyy. By that time, many Jews earned their living as tailors, shoemakers, and furriers, among other professions. The Jewish population swelled to 3,107 in 1847. Jews were owners of sugar, bricks and roof tiles, ceramics, tobacco, and candles factories in the 19th century. The number of Jewish residents increased to 11,411 (22,855% of the total population) in 1897. A Jewish hospital and nine synagogues were in operation. Around 20 Jewish educational facilities as well as a library, reading room, and theatre functioned in the beginning of the 20th century. The pogrom arranged by the Petlyura gangs claimed the lives of 1,600 Jews in February 1919. Yiddish was the primary language of the records and documentation before WWII. The Jewish school operated in the Soviet period. In 1939, the Jewish population reached a peak of 14,518 (38,7% of the total) with over 2,500 who managed to evacuate or were drafted into the Red Army before the Nazi occupation of the city on July 8, 1941. In winter 1941, two ghettos for over 10,000 prisoners were established. One was for all Jews and another one for labourers of the camp. In October 1942, during the liquidation of the first ghetto, 5,300 local Jews and Jews from neighbouring villages were executed. On November 30, 1942, over 7,000 prisoners of the other ghetto were shot. The remaining 2,000 Jews were murdered during the liquidation of the camp. Three memorials were erected in the city after the end of WWII.