Vinohrad

Vynohrad – Vinohrad – Виноград (Ukrainian), Vinograd (Polish), ווינאָגראַד – Winorod (Yiddish)

Vinohrad is a village in Lisyanka district of Cherkassy region. The village’s estimated population is 1294 (as of 2001).

Information concerning Holocaust in Vinograd was given by local History teacher O.Koshman. Most of this article was taken from book Childhood in a Shtetl by Abraham P. Gannes.

Beginning

The Jewish community existed in Vynohrad since the XVIII century.

The village received Magdeburg rights 1850.

Vinograd means “a town of vineyards” but grapes were not grown in the area. Abraham Mindich, estimated that “the town was about one-half mile wide and a mile long with all the stores and shops located in the middle of the town. There was also space next to the stores where farmers brought their fruits and vegetables every Monday to sell to the Jewish population and to buy manufactured goods in the stores. All around the town empty land separated us from the gentile farmers (muzhiks), spread out for miles around us. One part of the empty space was reserved for Monday’s fair where the farmers brought their horses and cattle to sell and buy”.

In 1847 the combined Boyarka-Vinograd Jewish population consisted of 497: 253 men and 244 women. In 1847 Boyarka and Vinograd were listed as one township. In 1897, the towns were listed separately. Vinograd’s total population was “4064 of which 1523 were Jews, based on statistics of 1882.” In 1903 Vinograd was opened for free Jewish settlement.  Noteworthy is that in 1882, more than 35% of Vinograd’s total population were Jews.

Shtetl’s map in the beginning of XX century by Liuba Tenofskiy

In 1903, the restrictions on the settlement of Jews were canceled after the abolition of the “Provisional Regulations”. In the late 19th century, two synagogues operated.
The Jewish population suffered from the riots and lootings despite the existence of a Jewish self-defense of 25 people.

In 1909 a Talmud-Torah was opened.

Jews in the main were tradesman and merchants – as tailors, cobblers, carpenters, storekeepers, water carriers, wagoners, seamstresses, horse and cattle traders, wheat, egg, sugar and textiles merchants, shochtim (ritual slaughterers) and butchers, tanners, midwives, blacksmiths, teachers, lumber dealers, and flour mill owners.

Story of the great fire in Vinograd as remembered by Sholem Lukach: “It happened on a Friday in May 1900, fire struck our town. Ours was a small town, called Vinograd, in the province of Kiev, Kiev, Zwinigrodka county. Most of the houses were small made of wood with straw thatched roofs …As was the custom on Fridays, the housewives began to prepare for the Sabbath. Moshe Eidel’s wife lit the stove to prepare the Sabbath food which was cooked in a primitive oven fired by wood and straw. Accidentally, a spark ignited the straw roof and since the houses were close to one another, to the town’s misfortune, they caught fire which spread throughout the town. “The wind was strong that day and the fire spread from one end of town to the other. The commotion was great, people running about, screaming: Fire! Everyone grabbed a pail and ran to fetch water from the town well since there was no fire brigade in those days. But to no avail. Most of the town was on fire … Men and women rushed around in great confusion. They succeeded in salvaging some of their possessions and carried them to an empty lot on the outskirts of the town. Only a few houses with sheet metal roofs escaped the fire among them our house…

PreRevolution mill in Vinograd, 2016

Relatives estimated the Jewish population in 1917 “was 300 to 500 families for a total 3000 souls out of a total general population of 9000 to 10,000. I tend to favor the 500 figure based on the percentage of the Jewish population to the total population. The shtetl proper was almost 100% Jewish with the possible exception of the aptek (pharmacy) and the liquor store owned by non-Jews, and the Volost (City Hall) and the government officials.

Members of the large Mindich family engaged in several trades and businesses, as wholesale egg dealers, hardware and grocery store owners, owners of a flour mill, cooking oil and cereal producers.

There was no doctor, hospital or clinic in the shtetl. The pharmacist (feldsher in Yiddish) was consulted or called in occasionally to attend the sick and to prescribe medication Application of leeches and cupping was a general practice. Zvingrodka was the nearest town which had a hospital and doctors, Jews and non-Jews. For a short time, there was a doctor in town. Haya Nir’s father, Abraham Friedman, rented the family’s new building to an out-of-town doctor, allegedly a communist. He served the town well and befriended the family. One day, Cossacks surrounded the budding, seized the doctor and shot him.
Monday and Thursday were market days and busy ones for Jews and peasants of the surrounding villages. The yarid played an important role in the shtetls’ economy and welfare.
The town Bet Din (religious court) was headed by Rabbi Yerachmiel, assisted by pious and respected scholarly laymen.

The town Mikveh, the women’s ritual bath, as prescribed in the tradition, was a basic institution for the maintenance of Jewish family purity. Another institution was the Hekdesh (poor house) for the care of the indigent, the mentally disturbed and the retarded.
Vinograd had its share of apikorsim (non-believers), Zionists, Hebraists, Socialists, Bundists, Maskilim (adherents of the Haskalah – the Enlightenment Movement). Followers of these ideologies were few in number in the shtetl but they were among us and found expression in one way or another.

The early disintegration and destruction of the shtetl’s way of life began with the increased emigration between 1910-1914 by husbands, single men and women, seeking a new life mainly in the United States, Canada, Cuba, Western Europe, South America and Palestine. Those who left before World War I and the 1917 Revolution were motivated by several interrelated factors: the social, economic and political future was bleak. The rising government-sponsored anti-Semitism, the memory of the 1903 Kishinev pogrom, the 1911 Mendel Beilis blood libel case, the turmoil and the instability of the Czarist regime, following the Russo-Japanese war, and the 1905 Revolution, which threatened the existence of the Jewish population.

Synagogues in shtetl

The Bes Medrash synagogue was on the west side, left of the marketplace and the Kloiz synagogue on the right side. A small synagogue (die kleine shulchl) is shown north of the market place.
The Kloiz, according to Tenofsky, was a huge imposing two-story structure attended by the well educated, scholarly individuals and by men of substance and wealth. The synagogues were Orthodox in tradition and practice. The Kloiz was a Hasidic congregation which followed the Sephardic liturgy. Abraham Ganapolsky remembers that his father, Mendel, was a teacher in the Kloiz. Rabbi Yerachmiel conducted regular study groups at the Bes Medrash.
Liuba Tenofsky notes that accommodations were made available for the Yomtovniks (holiday guests), that is, for Jews who lived in nearby villages which were too small to have their own synagogues. On major holidays and festivals, the Yomtovniks came to town for the observance and worship in the Bes Medrash.

New shops on the sites of former Jewish shops. Distance between buildings still small as before Revolution

The Bes Medrash was a place of Orthodox worship and study, for those who were, presumably, “opponents” of the Hasidim called Mitnagdim. Liuba Tenofsky, whose father Henzl was the shames of the Bes Medrash, remembered it as a large and beautiful building and had a sketch made of it, featuring the different parts of the synagogue: the Aron Kash which contained the Torah scrolls and which faced Mizrach, the Balemer (the central podium where the Torah scroll was read), her father’s seat on the Balemer, the pews on the three sides, fronting the Holy Ark and the Balemer, the separate entrances to the synagogue for men and women, the mechitzah (the partition separating men and women), the women’s section, the social and study halls, the cantor’s and choir’s places. A feature shown on the sketch, which I do not personally remember, are the stained glass windows above the Holy Ark. According to Liuba “The Bes Medrash was big enough for 500 taleisim (prayer shawls) or congregants.”

Shaya Antnovsky had a largest inn in shtetl. Also he was a leader in Bes Medrash and has good relation with gentile officials and the town priest.
Dov Ber Ganapolskiy was on of the leaders and pillars in the Kloiz, the synagogue of the Hasidim in the shtetl.

Zionists in Vinograd

Louis Antonoff records that his father, Shlomo,  left for Palestine before the outbreak of WWI with the intention of bringing his wife and eight children to Eretz Yisrael. He bought land and deposited money in a Palestine-English bank. He was making plans and preparations for moving the family to Palestine but the outbreak of the War in 1914 postponed his plans. Sadly, Mishke age 19, one of his sons, was killed in a pogrom in our shtetl. Another son, Motel, age 24, during a pogrom, hid in a cold, damp cellar, contracted pneumonia and died as a result of it. In 1919, the family left the shtetl, endured the hardships, crossed the Dniester River to Bessarabia illegally, spent months in Romania and after an arduous journey, arrived in Palestine. After the War, inspired and motivated by Zionist beliefs and convictions, as many as fifty Vinograd families found their way to Palestine, among them the Antonovsky, Krasnovsky, Resnick, Lukach, Cohen, Friedman, Zunder, Brodsky, Olin families.

Vinograders in Israel: top to bottom Nachman Gussak Left to Right Hayim Labovsky, Shlomo Antonovsky, David Resnik, Tuvia Lukach, Bezalel Antonovsky, Sholem Lukach, Abraham Friedman, Leib Schwartzburg, Yaakov Zunder, Tuvia Zunder Credit: Hanna Antonovsky-Steier

A Zionist group attracted those who were contemplating or planning immigration to Palestine. A Hebrew literary circle, in which Uncle Lipa was an active member, read the writings of the Hebraists of the day and Hebrew periodicals, such as Hamelitz (Interpreter or Advocate) and Harzefirah (the Dawn), the first Hebrew magazines, published in the nineteenth century.
Lipa Antonovsky opened a modern Hebrew school. Not satisfied with the enrollment and negative attitude of the traditionalists, he moved to Yekatrinoslay.

Labor-Zionist group existed in Vinograd also.

Civil War pogroms

Sporadic pogroms were committed in Vinograd, the first one on November 13, 1917, and others at 1918-1920.
In a letter to the Ministry of Jewish Affairs of the Rada, dated October 27, 1918, a Vinograd reporter whose name is not recorded wrote: “For three months we have lived in fear and without any government protection. From time to time, bands numbering thirty to forty riders, fully armed, enter our shtetl, drive the Jews into the synagogue, surround it, threaten to shoot them, and demand tribute to be paid immediately. While waiting for payment of ransom they move from house to house and plunder them. On the road close to our town seven Jews were ambushed and murdered and when several wives and mothers arrived in the village and begged for the return of the bodies so as to give them the proper burial, they too were murdered. Many Jews were murdered in nearby towns such as Ryznivka, where the peasants killed seven Jews.”

Liuba Tenofsky remembered the tragic event which struck the town, although her version is slightly different The results, however, were the same. Her Aunt Ruchel and Uncle Yossie and their two sons were among the victims.
Murray Brodsky, who left the shtetl in 1919, remembered a pogrom which his family experienced: “A pogrom occurred on a Sunday. The Reds arrived in the shtetl and demanded of the peasants tons of wheat, corn, and other products. The peasants refused, organized themselves and killed all the Reds. Suspicious of the Jews, the peasants rounded up all the young men, brought them to the synagogue and beat them severely. My two brothers, Solomon and Joe were among them. A gentile, Gorst by name, a friend of the family, brought to our home a Professor Tutumac, the leader of the pogromchiks. My mother served him refreshments – tea, cake, and jelly. My father wrote a note requesting the release of his two sons, asking Tutumac to sign it. He refused. Gorst too begged him to sign and finally, he did. Whereupon my mother prepared a platter of good; es which I brought to the synagogue to the leader. He immediately orders to release my two brothers.

There was a synagogue in this area. I don’t find information when it was demolished

The rabbi in town had a nephew in Zvinigrodka who came for a visit to Vinograd. It appears that nephew was one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks in Zveigorodka.  The pogromchiks seized and killed him and took the rabbi with them when they left the shred. They brought him to a nearby village and sent word demanding ransom money for his release. The money was sent and the rabbi was set free. The entire shtetl welcomed him back. The rabbi was still wearing his tallis and his tefilin… From then on, pogromchiks would come to town at night and kill Jews. The Jewish WWI veterans who had returned from the war organized a self-defense group and patrolled the streets. For a time it was peaceful until the pogromchiks organized on a big scale. The Jews were defenseless…. The Reds came again and again, made their demands for supplies, were surrounded but fought back with machine guns….. We returned to Vinograd before Yom Kippur. In the synagogue, the Shamas urged all the townspeople to be on the alert. The problems became worse and once again we fled to Zvenigorodka”.
Liuba Tenofsky described the tragic death of her father, Hemel, the Shamas of the Bes Medrash: “My father died a martyr’s death during a vicious pogrom in 1920. Bandits on horseback rounded up all the Jews and set fire to the Bes Medrash. Henzl ran to the Aron Kodesh, seized a Sefer Torah, held it tightly and ran out of the synagogue, also holding on to his grandson, Ellie. The bandits, with whips in hand, chased him until he fell down in the dirt road and gasped his last breath, still holding the Sefer Torah in his arms.”‘

Saul Mindich’s stories, sad and tragic, like those of his relatives and other townspeople, are illustrative of the turbulence and trauma Vinograd endured:
“When the bandits came into town, they rounded up as many Jews as they could find…. Jews would run and hide. Those who couldn’t were locked up in the synagogue and held for ransom. If the ransom was not paid, the soldiers threatened to burn the synagogue and the Jews in it …. A committee was formed, the ransom was raised by taxing each family according to the committee’s judgement …”

Small Jewish self defence group was organised in shtetl. They obtained some guns and stayed in one house, sending out people to patrol the streets. If they noticed someone who looked suspicious coming into town, they informed the patrol guards who alerted the townspeople, thus avoiding many tragedies.

I estimate that Vinograd experienced as many as twenty attacks.

Leaders of the Whites occupied Zaide Shaya’s inn. Family members took shelter somewhere else. Zaide Shaya was ordered to provide the Whites with 200 pairs of boots. His pleas that he could not possibly fill the demand were dismissed. He was threatened with severe punishment personally and warned that the shtetl would suffer terribly if he did not comply with the demands within 24 hours. He ran from household to household and somehow managed to assemble 100 pairs of used and new boots. Fearing for his life, he gave the boots to the Whites and mercifully he was not harmed. He may have been spared because they stayed at his inn. This story, Zaide Shaya told the family a few days after the event too, had compassion for their Jewish neighbors, hid saved them.

Aunt Rachel later reported that in the place where she was in hiding, an infant began to cry. The mother, in the effort to keep the child quiet, held it tight, covered its mouth and unknowingly smothered it.

Local priest risked his life during the pogroms by hiding the Jewish families in the cold storage cellars on his beautiful estate.

Between the Wars

Most Vinograder found their way to the United States. Inspired by their Zionist beliefs and convictions, some families settled in Palestine; others migrated to Canada, Argentina and other countries. With the removal of residence restrictions after the Revolution, Vinograder abandoned the shtetl and settled in Kiev, Kharkov, Minsk, Odessa, Moscow, Leningrad, Lvov and other large cities of USSR. How many families remained in Vinograd? In 1926, the Jewish population of Vinograd was 1108.

JDC report about Vinograd, 1923:

I recall that members of the family, whenever possible, and the Vinograder Benevolent Society periodically sent funds and packages to their impoverished townspeople.

In the middle 1930’s, the United States and the Soviet Union resumed diplomatic relations. Vinograder living in America and in Palestine, came to visit the shtetl, or were in telephone contact with their relatives.

In 1922, Jewish self-defense detachment in the shtetl consists of 25 people.

From the memories of Angelina Feodosiyivna Snigur (Baglay), born in 1926:

In the 1930’s the following Jews were repressed:
– Favel Zeylikinovich Linchuk was shot in 1938.
– Y.G. Zaberstein was shot in 1937
– K.L. Zaberstein was sentenced to five years in prison in 1938

Holocaust

Vinograd was occupied in July 1941. A small percentage of Vinograd’s Jewish population evacuated but the majority stayed behind. When the Germans entered the village, the Jewish population began to suffer. They were humiliated and beaten. Ukrainian auxillary policemen robbed the Jewish houses and drew yellow stars on them.

The first victim was Komsomol girl Olshanska. She was shot near the Jewish cemetery.

The largest part of the Jews of Vinograd was shot or buried alive together with all the Jews of Lysianka district in Pochapyntsi forest. The former director of the local mill Ganopolskiy and his family, Levko Tsmokov’s wife, and three children (one of the daughters’ name was Raya), pharmacist Bilotserkivsky’s family, Avram Zhabiansky’s family (daughter Ita, daughter-in-law Sarah with two children), Bilopolsky with his wife, brothers Isak and Shimon Basovsky, Shimon’s wife Dina, grandson Izia; Israyil Shubynsky with his wife, 79 year old Mordko Zhabyansky, Avram Zhabyansky, Levko Bilopolsky, barber Vyshnevetsky with his family, tailor Mykhaylo Mykytiansky with the family were killed in that forest.

Leonid Olshanytsky was called up to the front and his family stayed in occupation. The policemen burnt his 17 year-old daughter’s hair and then killed her. His 13 year-old son Volodia was shot at the Jewish cemetery. His mother Dvoyra, wife Malka, and two year-old daughter Vera were shot in Pochapyntsi forest. After the war Leonid dug out the body of his son and reburied him in Pochapyntsi near the mass grave.

Oleksandra Savivna Pavlychuk from Bosivka had been hiding cinema mechanic from Vinograd Petr Ruvinovych Basovsky in the attic for a month and a half. He survived and used to come there after the war.

Leonid Yosypovych Tsmokov (1918-1986) ran away from the column of the Jews who were being led to be shot. He was hiid at the home of the Dolubakha family however he was found. Mykola Chornohuz (a member of the Ukrainian auxillary police) was ordered to escort him to the Jewish cemetery were he was to be shot him however, Chornohuz sparred his life. Tsmokov survived the occupation and was mobilized into the Soviet Army following Vinograd’s liberation. He ended up fighting in Poland and Germany.

O.M. Dubova, a resident of Vinograd village reminds: “I had best friend Fayina Abramivna Bilotserkivska. Her father was a pharmacist and an honorable person in the village. In June 1941, Fayina went to her relatives to Leningrad to enter the institute and died during the blockade in Leningrad. Her father Abram Volodymyrovych Bilotserkivsky, mother Reveka Markivna, and aunt Roza Markivna stayed in the village. When the Germans entered Vinograd they were expelled from the village and then they all were buried alive. There were two Jews in my class, Elik Basovsky and Fania Bilotserkivska. They both died.

There was a Jewish family Postrilko in the village. When the fascists were shooting seven Jews in the pit near Vinograd Yakiv Postrilko was among them. He was heavily wounded but managed to reach the co-villagers. They took care of him, cured him. However, someone gave him away and he was shot.

Ukrainian, Mykola Vasyliovych Yakymchuk, was married to a Jewish woman Betia, they had four children. When the war began Mykola went to the Red Army as a volunteer. The children together with their mother were hidden in the village but someone gave them away. They all were shot at the Jewish cemetery. Brothers Izia and Milia Zozulia died at that place as well. Mykola survived and lived in the village after the war. Every day he went to the grave of his wife and children.

351 people from Vinograd were called up when the war began.  There were 24 Jews among them. Nine of them died. Those were Elik Basovskiy, Shika, Mikhail and Vladimir Gutnik, Isak Yosypovych Tsmokov, Mykola Avramovych Spektor, Petro Yefymovych Olianytsky, Hordiy Hryhorovych Tsyberman, Avram Mamonovych Pyliavsky. Yakov Oleksovych Papuzny and Stepan Davydovych Popenko disappeared.

The amount of killed Jews from Vinograd is difficult to count. We can assume that there were more than 100 people.

After the WWII

When Lysianka district had been freed a part of the Jewish population came back from the evacuation.

In 2017, information concerning last Jews from the village was provided by Nina Lvovna Tsmokova (born in 1946).She was a daughter of one of the last Jews of the village, invalid of WWII Leonid Olshanitskiy (1902-1980):

– Worker at the local shop,, Mikhail Vishnevetskiy, and teacher of the German language Faina Isakovna Gutnik’s family. They had two daughters Alla and Ira.
– Golda Gunik and her son Aaron who left for Kiev and then for Canada.
– Supplier Don Shvartsburg with his wife Rachel and son Alik. He moved to Kramatorsk.
– Glazier Ayzik Kelmanskiy with his wife Sonia and son Yasha. The latter went to Dnepropetrovsk.
– Mikhail and Anna Skliarskiy with their three sons . Two of them moved to Krivoy Rog and then to Israel.
– Veksler family. The head of the family was producing sparkling water. There was son Petr and daughter Roza.
– Post-war school principal Betia Tsmokova with her sister Olia.
– Sokalskiy family with daughter Roza.
– Saddler Meylekh Skliarskiy with his wife Sheyva and daughter Tatyana.
– Glazier Grigoriy Budnik

Last Jews of Vinograd lived here after the WWII in few buildings close to each over.

Dead Jews were buried in Zvenigorodka because the Jewish cemetery in Vinograd was destroyed.

Gradually, Jewish families went to live to large cities, old men died. The last Jew in the village was Leonid Yosipovich Tsmokov (1918-1986).

Jewish cemetery

The demolished Jewish cemetery is located behind the entrance sign of Vynohrad village in the direction of Lysianka. The sign is made of granite and is over three meters in height. In the adjacent field, there are up to ten tombstones.

There are unmarked mass graves from Civil War and WWII. We don’t know their exact location…

Jewish cemetery operated from the early XIX century until 1953. Most of the gravestones were stolen by local Ukrainians.
In the second half of XX century, local Jews buried their relatives in Zvenigorodka Jewish cemetery or used local Christian cemetery.

Gravestones around the whole territory of former Jewish cemetery:

Last gravestones were stolen by local bastard Petro Basok, but he returned them in the cemetery and they are standing in one line.

The oldest surviving monument:
1886
פ”נ
אשה ח’ מ’
אסתר רייזיל
בת ר’ יצחק נפ
כד שבט תרמו
תנצבה
Here buried
is a respected woman
Esther Reizel
Daughter of rabbi Yitshak, who died
On Shvat 24, 5646.
May her soul be bound in the bond of life

Part of this information was taken from Lo-Tishkah website.

Genealogy

In the census of the Jews of Vinograd for 1894 there were such surnames as Antonovskiy, Balagura, Baltaksa, Berinskiy, Berkun, Bershadskiy Blinder, Bosovskiy, Brichkov, Brodskiy, Vinnitskiy, Vishnevetskiy, Vodianitskiy, Ganopolskiy, Gitman, Glistvayb, Golub, Gronshbel, Dubovik, Zhabianskiy, Zaychik, Zaslavskiy, Zilberand, Zlotchenko, Zozulia, Zunder, Kagan, Kanevskiy, Keykhman, Kirp, Kleyman, Kosogliad, Kotelnik, Kuperman, Lebedianskiy, Lelchuk, Lukach, Lvovskiy, Mezherichskiy, Mikitianskiy, Niregberg, Pokras, Postrelko, Promyshlovskiy, Reznik, Reznikov, Reynish, Rubchanskiy, Sandler, Skliarskiy, Slabovik, Sogutovskiy, Sokalskiy, Teplitskiy, Tynovskiy, Faynerman, Fridman, Cherkes, Shvartsburd, Shestak, Shekhtman, Shmandur, Shneyder, Shoykhet, Shostak, Shubinskiy, Eydish, Eydlin, Efros, Yampolskiy.

List was provided by Mitya farber. Thanks to Mitya