Dobrushyne (Dobrushino)/Former Jewish colony Dobrushin | Crimea

Field workers pose hoeing a field at the Dobrushino collective farm. (Background) two men on horseback.1931 © From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Outdoor portrait of children and teachers of a kindergarten at the Dobrushino kolkhoz, 1931 © From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research At the Dobrushino kolkhoz, 1930 © From the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research / Antonina C., born in 1929: “The Jews were simply forced out of their houses and escorted to the ravine. They were shot above it.”  © Mona Oren  /Yahad-In Unum Ivan T., born in 1915, remembers when the kolkhoz was created before the war.   © Mona Oren  /Yahad-In Unum Christian cemetery where the victims were buried after the execution.  © Mona Oren  /Yahad-In Unum

Execution of Jews in Dobrushyne

1 Execution site(s)

Kind of place before:
Christian cemetery
Memorials:
Yes
Period of occupation:
1941-1944
Number of victims:
About 50-60

Witness interview

Ivan CH., born in 1915: “YIU: Do you remember how the Jewish kolkhozes were established?
W: Yes, of course. The started to build in 1930. From 1926 the columns of Jews arrived here from Ukraine. They started to build the houses with the help of JOINT.
YIU: Did JOINT send them equipment or money?
W: Those Jews were poor. None could be poorer than they were. The JOINT helped them by sending the equipment, material and goods. I remember there was a village of Nikolayevka, where one used to extract stone in a stone quarry. They pulled those stones with horse. With those stones they built the first line of the house, those which are located on the Klubnaya street.
YIU: What did the kolkhoz produce?
W: This kolkhoz was polyvalent, if I may say so. They bred sheep. There were about one hundred animals. There were special stables where they were guarded. Then, they sheered the sheep and the wool was given to the state according to the production plans. And it was an agricultural kolkhoz as well.” (Witness N°121, interviewed in Dobrushyne on December 29, 2004).

Historical note

Dobrushyne is a village located 18 km north of Eupatoria. It was founded in 1927 as a Jewish agricultural colony and named after a famous Yiddish writer, Yekhezkl Dobrushin. In the interwar period, in 1930, a Jewish kolkhoz was established, named after Molotov. The Jewish and non-Jewish children went to the same Russian-speaking school, which initially was Yiddish. In 1932, there were 230 Jews in Dobrushyne. The majority of whom lived off agriculture and sheep breeding. After the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, the majority of the Jews left the village.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

Dobrushyne was occupied by Germans in October-November 1941. The Germans executed the remaining Jews in the course of two Aktions. The first one occurred in December 1941. Those who survived the first execution, but were found afterwards were executed during the second one which took place in the late winter 1942. According to the witness interviewed by Yahad, during the second shooting, the Germans took the Jews from their homes and escorted to the pit dug before for the construction purposes. This mass execution lasted only one day. The same witness remembered that one Jewish boy, her brother’s friend, was shot trying to escape. The shootings were conducted by Sondercommando 11b, unit of the Einzatsgruppe D,  which operated in the Crimea. Afterwards, all the bodies were buried at Christian cemetery. According to the eyewitnesses, several Jews managed to survive.

Jewishgen

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