Ukraine / Kropyvnytskyi (Kirovohrad) (Кропивницький)

Memorial to the murdered Jews of Kirovograd

Пам'ятник євреям - жертвам нацизму

In the city of Kropyvnytskyi (until 2016: Kirovohrad) a memorial and a plaque remember the murdered Jews of Kirovograd. The memorials are very close together and most likely in the close proximity of the sites of the mass shootings.

History

Kropyvnytskyi is an industrial city in central Ukraine. The city was founded in 1754 under the name of Elizabethgrad. In Soviet times it was renamed Kirovograd in honour of a murdered Soviet politician. In 2016 it was named Kropyvnytskyi after a Ukrainian writer and playwright. Jews settled in the city since the middle of the 18th century. In the early 20th century there were anti-Jewish excesses, many Jews left the city. In 1939 the city had a population of about 100,000 inhabitants, 15,000 of them Jews.
The German Wehrmacht occupied the city on August 14, 1941. At that time approximately 40% of the Jewish population still remained in the city, the majority had fled or had joined the Red Army. The German occupiers registered about 5,000 Jews. In addition they deployed a Ukrainian Schutzpolizei (municipal police) which actively participated in all anti-Jewish »Aktionen«. In the first two months units of the Sonderkommando (special unit) 4b murdered several hundred Jews. The victims were most notably members of the educated upper layers of society. Jewish men who were fit for work were interned in the Kushevka labour camp southeast of the city. During the month members of the German military police and SS murdered all interned Jews in an anti-tank ditch on the site of the former fortification St. Elizabeth. In late September 1941 the police battalion 304 murdered the remaining Jewish children, women and men. They were forced to assemble at various places in the city under the pretext to resettle them to Odessa. Then they were transported in lorries to an anti-tank ditch at the end of Rovenskaya Street where they were murdered and buried. Jews who were captured later were murdered by the SD (Security Service of the SS) in prison in today's Kamarova Street northwest of the other murder sites. They also were buried in an anti-tank ditch near the prison site.

Kropyvnytskyi, 2009, Memorial stone, IgorTurzh

Kropyvnytskyi, undated, Memorial, Obyedinennaya evrejskaya obchtchina ukrainy

Victims

From late August until September 12, 1941 units of the Sonderkommando (special unit) 4b murdered up to 750 Jews. The date of their murder and the number of Jewish victims in the Kushevka labour camp are controversial. Presumably on September 19, 1941 about 370 male Jews were murdered by the SS and military police. The most extensive »Aktion« took place on September 30, 1941. The police battalion 304 murdered up to 4,000 Jewish children, women and men. Jews who escaped the mass shootings were captured and murdered near the SD (Security Service of the SS) prison. Up to 150 Jewish POWs were murdered in Stalag 305 in Adabash. Ukrainian Schutzpolizei (municipal police) was involved in all »Aktionen«. According to Soviet authorities the Germans murdered 5,000 Jews in Kirovograd between August and September 1941.

Ukraine, the second-largest Republic in the European part of the former Soviet Union, was at the centre of the Second World War and the Holocaust. It is estimated that five to six million Ukrainians died during the war, including around 630,000 Jews. In mid-September 1939, following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in accordance with the Hitler-Stalin Pact – a secret German-Soviet agreement –, the south-east of Poland became part of the Soviet Ukraine. The oppression of the local population was now an everyday occurrence. In summer 1941, the German attack on the Soviet Union initially affected these very regions. Right from the start of the invasion the Jewish population was accused of supporting the Soviet powers and became the target of brutal attacks. These attacks were often the work of nationalist Ukrainians, who initially welcomed the advance of the Wehrmacht. German SS Einsatzgruppen and allied Rumanian units soon began to carry out mass shootings of Jews. The Babyn Yar ravine near Kiev, where German units and Ukrainian militia murdered over 33,700 Jews over two days in September 1941, has since become a global symbol of the genocide of Jews. The non-Jewish population was also a target for persecution. National Socialist racist ideology classed Ukrainians, as all »Slavs«, as »subhuman«. The occupiers looted the country, deported way over one million civilians to carry out forced labour and publicly executed hostages. By 1943 a partisan war against the Wehrmacht was raging along with the campaign of the nationalist »Ukrayinska Povstanska Armiya« (Ukrainian Rebel Army or UPA) against the Soviets and the Polish population in western Ukraine. The number of Poles to die in the process lies way over 100,000. From 1944 the Ukraine was again part of the Soviet Union and also encompassed former territories in eastern Poland. The UPA continued its campaign until the mid-1950s. The Soviet authorities deported around 300,000 Ukrainians to Siberia to counter the resistance. The Ukrainian culture of memory was aligned with the symbolic forms of remembrance found in the Soviet Union. Monumental sites of memory were constructed to celebrate the »victory« in the Great Patriotic War. It is only recently that victims have been remembered alongside the venerated heroes. In addition, a culture of memory centred on the campaign of the UPA has emerged in western Ukraine, with the UPA’s legacy being interpreted as a struggle for independence. Confrontation with anti-semitism and the collaboration with the German occupiers has only begun around 2000. With just a few exceptions, the mass shootings of Jews were ignored until the 1980s. It was not until 1991 that the government of independent Ukraine acknowledged Babyn Yar as a »symbol of Jewish martyrdom«. Long after gaining independence, Ukraine was still on the search for its national identity. The documentation of Soviet crimes – for example the state’s responsibility for the Great Famine (Holodomor) in 1922-23 that led to millions of deaths – has more significance in the establishment of a Ukrainian identity than learning about the Holocaust. Nevertheless, new memorial sites for the murdered Jews were established throughout the country, such as Drobitskiy Yar in Kharkiv or the Holocaust Museum in Odessa. On many mass grave sites new memorials were created, partially with German support. In Kiev, a new grand memorial site with global relevance was planned at Babyn Yar. These plans were put on hold with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. What impact the current defensive war will have on Holocaust remembrance in the future remains to be seen.

Remembrance

Kirovograd was liberated by the Red Army on January 8, 1944. Less than a dozen Jews had survived the German occupation. In 1970 again up to 10,000 Jews lived in the city. In 1988 a memorial plaque was unveiled in front of the former SD (Security Service of the SS) prison, now a dermatological clinic. The memorial consists of a granite stone to which a marble slab is attached remembering 2,000 Soviet victims. The fact that the victims were Jewish went unmentioned on memorials until the end of the Soviet Union.
The synagogue was closed by the Soviet administration due to dilapidation and only opened again in 1991 on initiative of the Jewish community. The museum »Elizabethgrad Jews« is located in the synagogue. In the same year a memorial remembering the murdered Jews of Kirovograd was erected. The lower part of the memorial consists of two triangles arranged in such a way that they resemble a Star of David when viewed from above. The upper part consists of an angular pillar whose lower sides are decorated with bas-reliefs. On these two palms, two birds and ornaments are engraved. The memorial has a height of 6,5 meters.
In 2005 a memorial was erected on the square in front of the synagogue. The Russian inscription remembers the Jews who had to assemble in this square prior to their murder. On the stone a biblical quotation in Hebrew is engraved also. A further memorial is located on the site of the former fortification St Elizabeth. The memorial plaque remembers according to its inscription the 50,000 Soviet inhabitants who were murdered between 1941 and 1944 and who are presumed to be buried there. All memorials are located within the city centre.

Kropyvnytskyi, undated, Street in front of the synagogue, Yad Vashem

Kropyvnytskyi, undated, Historic view of the city, public domain

Open

The memorial is accessible at all times.

Contact

http://ujew.com.ua/

ujew@ujew.com.ua

+38 (068) 2-770-770

Kropyvnytskyi, undated, Historic view of the synagogue, public domain

Kropyvnytskyi, undated, Synagogue and Memorial stone, Obyedinennaya evrejskaya obchtchina ukrainy

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