My father, Michael Krutoyarsky, was born in Ternovka, Ukraine in 1930. Two years later, he and his family left
Ternovka for Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1941, when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, my
father and his family happened to be visiting Ternovka relatives. The family fled Ternovka three days before
that town was captured by the Nazis.
Soible & daughter Ida (click to enlarge)
My grandfather, Usher Krutoyarsky (1906 - 1942), was drafted into the Soviet Army. He was killed in action in
March 1942 near Leningrad. My grandmother, Soible Krutoyarskaya née Vidrak (1907 - 1993), was evacuated
to the Volga region along with my father Michael and his sister Ida (1937 - 2001). My grandmother's parents,
Itsek and Malka Vidrak, were murdered by the Nazis in Ternovka on 27 May 1942; their names appear on the Yad Vashem
Holocaust Memorial.
Sergeant Usher Mikhailovich Krutoyarsky killed 10 March 1942 village of Moskovskaya Slavyanka (click to enlarge)
My mother was born in Leningrad in 1930; she survived
until 2002. Her father was killed in action near Leningrad in August 1941.
As far as I know, all the Jewish houses in Ternovka were demolished by the Germans and their minions using the forced labor of those
Jews who escaped the first massacre.
Usher (left) & friends Ternovka, ca. 1922 (click to enlarge)
The monument to the murdered Jews of Ternovka can be found in Antonovka, five miles east of Ternovka.
My father never returned to Ternovka. It was very hard for him to go where his relatives were murdered.
