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Yefingar

YEFINGAR, Jewish agricultural settlement on the River Ingul (Kherson district, Nikolaev province of Ukraine), which existed from 1809 to 1941. The first settlers attracted by the political support of the Czarist government for agriculture were, evidently, from Lithuania. There were 48 families with 276 people who originally took up viticulture and kitchen-gardening. In 1897, Yefingar had a Jewish population of 2,038 out of a total population of 2,226 and had a Jewish school. Under the Soviets a Jewish collective farm was established in Yefingar which became one of the most prosperous in the province. With the German attack on Russia in June 1941 almost all the male population was called up military service; several days before the arrival of German forces teenagers and all means of transportation were mobilized. The other inhabitants were not evacuated. After Yefingar was occupied by the German troops, all the remaining Jews (521 people) were executed by the Germans and their local accomplices on September 10, 1941. After the war Yefingar was renamed Plyushchevka. The inscription on the monument there, set up with great difficulty by relatives of those massacred, does not indicate that the victims were Jews. No Jews now live in the village and the former Jewish cemetery has been destroyed.


Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.