HISTORY OF JEWS IN ILINTSY (LINITZ)

According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, Jews began settling in Ilintsy in the mid-17th century and by 1765 numbered 386. After its incorporation into Russia in 1793 it belonged administratively to the Kiev province. In 1790, the Jews numbered 423. In 1852 all of the town's 76 artisans were Jews. The community numbered 3,407 in 1847, 4,993 (49.7% of the total population) in 1897, and 5,407 (46.8%) in 1926. Before WWI almost all the shops belonged to Jewish merchants, among them were 36 textile stores, 19 groceries, and 11 stores for leather products. At this time there were six synagogues and a private school for boys in operation.

Two pogroms, perpetrated by Denikin's army, occurred in 1919. During the interwar period many Jews left Ilintsy, and by 1939 their number had dropped to 2,217 (total population 3,484). Many changes occurred in Jewish economic life at this time. The shopkeepers disappeared from the scene by the end of the 1920s and the artisans were forced 10 join cooperatives. Some of these cooperatives developed into garment and shoe factories. At the end of 1931 there were still 500 unemployed Jewish youngsters in the town. There existed a Yiddish school with about 250 pupils and a Jewish local council operated in the 1920s.

Ilintsy was occupied by the Germans on July 23, 1941. They appointed a Jadenrat and imposed a heavy fine in gold and silver on the Jews. At the end of August, 1941, the Jews were concentrated in an open ghetto, and in November 1941 Ukrainian police murdered 43 Jews and on April 24, 1942, the Nazis executed 1000 more. On May 27-28, 1942, another 700 Jews were murdered. In December, 1942, the Germans burned down houses where Jews were hiding, shooting those who attempted to escape. The remaining Jews were sent to a labor camp on the outskirts of the town. Executions of individuals in and groups occurred regularly.

A small resistance group of 18 Jews was organized by David Mudrik, armed with two hand-guns, hand grenades, and knives. They escaped from the camp in August 1943 and organized a Jewish partisan company in the framework of the Second Stalin Brigade of the Vinnitsa district. Of the total force of 124 Jewish fighters, only 52 were armed. A web site of the "Partisans, Ghetto Fighters and Jewish Undergrounds" lists Avrum Kantalinski and his son Dmitriy (ancestors of the authors of this website) as members of Vinnitsa Brigade Number 2.

The town was liberated in 1944. In 1970 the Jewish population was estimated at approximately 100 (20 families). They had no synagogue and most left in the 1990s. When Rick Kolinsky and Richard Kollins visited Ilintsy in July, 2007, there were five Jewish families in Ilintsy with the surnames Brofman, Sikulez, Zalcman, Litvak and Lekhtser.