ZAPOROZHE

ZAPOROZHE (before 1921 Alexandrovsk), city in Zaporozhe district, Ukraine. The Jewish community increased with the rapid development of the town in the late 19^th century and in 1897 numbered 5,290 (28 percent of the total population). In 1881 there was an outbreak of *pogroms in the town, whence they spread to the surrounding towns and villages. In 1905 there were again severe pogroms. The Jewish population in 1926 numbered 11,319 (20.3 percent of the total). The growth of the city attracted many thousands of Jews from the impoverished townlets of western Ukraine and Belorussia. In 1932 there were 20,000 Jews in Zaporozhe, of whom about half were industrial workers. It is estimated that this number at least doubled in the period before World War ii, which was a time of rapid development for the city of Zaporozhe (whose total population rose from 56,000 in 1926 to 289,000 in 1939). During the German occupation in World War ii the Jews who did not succeed in escaping were murdered. In 1959 the Jews numbered 17,400 (4 percent of the total population). There was no synagogue, but kasher poultry was available. There was a Jewish section in the general cemetery, and on the outskirts of the city a Jewish mass grave dating from the German massacres.

District of Zaporozhe

Between 1846 and 1855 ten Jewish settlements were founded in the district of Zaporozhe. In 1908 they cultivated 309,000 acres. These settlements were incorporated in 1928 within the Jewish autonomous region named Nei-Zlatopol after the largest settlement. The Jewish population of the district numbered 7,500 (50 percent). The Jewish settlements were destroyed during the German occupation.

bibliography:

Die Judenpogrome in Russland, 2 (1909), 196–203.

[Yehuda Slutsky]