1 Killing site(s)
Kozachyi Yar is a small village in the Odesa region, located approximately 18 km (11 mi) from Liubashivka and 65 km (40 mi) from the current district administrative center, Podilsk. The village was founded in 1780 under the name Khutir Strazhnytsia ("the sentinel hamlet"). Shortly thereafter, the settlement was renamed Kozachyi Yar in reference to its Cossack founders. Since its founding, Kozachyi Yar has consistently remained an exclusively agricultural and peasant hamlet populated by Ukrainians of Cossack origin. The hamlet was closely linked to Demydivka, which was founded by the same Cossack family. The two villages shared a collective farm (kolkhoz), and local children attended school in Demydivka. Unlike the towns and shtetls of the district, no Jewish presence was recorded in Kozachyi Yar.
Kozachyi Yar was occupied by German forces in the summer of 1941 and subsequently placed under Romanian administration as part of Transnistria.
Columns of Jewish deportees passed through the village under the escort of Romanian soldiers. Some of them were temporarily interned in the farm buildings. When the columns resumed their march, a number of the remaining Jews, presumably those too weak to continue, were left behind in the farm buildings and burned alive. Later, local residents of Kozachyi Yar retrieved a portion of the ashes and buried them in the village cemetery. Over time, the foundations of the burned farm were dismantled, leaving behind a vacant plot with no marker or memorial.
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