Minkovtsy

Jews started to settle in Minkovsty during the 18th century. After the murder of some Jews during the 1768 Haidamak uprising Minkovsty's Jewish population declined. In 1790 a Jewish printing house was established in the town. The Minkovtsy area became part of the Russian Empire in 1793. During the 19th century the Jewish population of the town increased, reaching 2,196 in 1897.

Under Soviet rule the Jews founded a kolkhoz and two artisans' cooperatives and a Yiddish school operated in the town. During the 1930s Minkovtsy became the center of a Jewish rural council. In 1939 the Jewish population of 1,635 comprised 46.5 percent of the total. In the whole area there were 2,412 Jews. Few Jews succeeded in leaving the Minkovtsy area before the Germans occupied the town on July 12, 1941. Immediately afterwards the Jews were ordered to appear to be registered. During this period some Jewish refugees from Kamenets-Podolsk, Lwów, Cernăuţi, and others cities and towns arrived in the town. The Germans took some Jews hostage to force the local Jews to hand over their gold, silver, money, and other valuables. Taxes were imposed on them as well. In early August 1941 a ghetto was set up in Minkovtsy. The Jews were often abused and humiliated, for example, being harnessed to carts and forced to pull heavy loads of stones to a hill located near the town and then back again. The Nazis cut off the beards of religious Jews, many of whom were made to grovel in the mud. On August 30, 1941 most of the Jews from Minkovtsy were shot to death. Apparently some time afterwards, a group of about 25 young Jews was shot to death on the town's outskirts. After this murder operation the local Ukrainian population looted the homes of the victims. Another 70 Jews who had been found in hiding were forced to live on one street and perform hard physical labor for a year. Then, apparently, they were taken to the ghetto of Dunayevtsy and shot to death, along with the other inmates, on October 19, 1942 in the Solonichnik forest.

Minkovtsy was liberated by the Red Army on March 28, 1944.