Today we turned another tragic page in the history of the Jewish people and the history of our city. February 15, 2021 marked the 102nd anniversary of the event, which in historical literature has been called the "Proskuriv Bloodbath."
Members of the Jewish community and the city's caring public gathered at a prayer rally at the monument to the victims of the Proskuriv Jewish pogrom to pay homage to the bright memory of the numerous victims of the rampant haidama violence.
The victims of the pogrom were mostly ordinary people, they lived modestly and honestly, earned bread for their families with hard work, and did not get involved in politics. The Jewish community at the beginning of the 20th century was quite wealthy and made a great contribution to the economic, spiritual, and cultural development of the city. But the bandits, infected with the bacillus of anti-Semitism, did not see this. They considered Jews a dangerous element for Ukrainian society. The well-known ataman Semesenko called on the Cossacks and Haidamaks to slaughter the entire Jewish population, just think about it, to save Ukraine!..
1600 lives were cut short in one day. A huge number of those killed received serious wounds and mutilations, but the mental trauma and suffering were immeasurably more severe. For what? The funerals of the victims lasted two days. 960 children were left orphans…
Words of sympathy and solidarity were conveyed to the participants of the mourning gathering by the head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Speech Olena Bohdan. Those present prayed together with the rabbi of Khmelnytskyi and the region Yosef Teitelbaum. Finally, a group of participants in the rally visited the grave of the righteous man of the Jewish people, priest Klymentiy Kachurovsky, who stood up for the Jews in a terrible time and paid for it with his life.
