Trokhymbrid Old Jewish Cemetery

After 1835, when Trokhymbrid was founded as a Jewish agricultural colony, the old Jewish cemetery of Trokhymbrid was established. It was used as a burial site by the communities of Trokhymbrid and Hnativka. The cemetery was closed in the early 20th century. During WWII, it was destroyed along with the shtetl of Trokhymbrid. No visible traces of the cemetery remain today.

Jews began settling in Trokhymbrid (Sofievka) in 1835, the year the village was founded, moving from the surrounding areas to cultivate the land and therefore find exemption from enlisting in the army. The population of the village, almost entirely Jewish, had reached 1,580 in 1897. During WWI, the Jewish community suffered under the Cossack’s troops and Ukrainian anti-semites. In 1921, the population of the village had reached 1,536. By 1941, the town’s population was estimated to be 1,800, probably an underestimation, as many Jews migrated here from Poland from 1939 onwards. After German troops arrived, local anti-semites organised a pogrom in early July. The Jewish community of Trokhymbrid was exterminated in the course of two Aktions in late August and early September of 1942, in which around 3,000 Jews were shot. A few dozen Jews escaped and formed a partisan detachment headed by H. Rosenblat. After the executions, houses were destroyed and the village ceased to exist. In 1990, two monuments to Holocaust victims were erected at the town’s entrance and in the nearby forest. Trokhymbrid is known through to its fictional portrayal in Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel “Everything Is Illuminated” (2002) and in the film of the same title, directed by Liev Schreiber.