Jews had resettled in Zinkov by the early 18th century, but were murdered by the
haidamaks, anti-Polish Ukrainian insurgents, in 1734. The arrival of Polish rabbi
Avraham Yehoshua Heshel and his son Yitzchak Meir in the second half of the 18th century reinvigorated the Jewish presence, and Zinkiv became a leading center of
Hasidic Judaism in the
Podolia area. In 1897, the city's population was 7,017, 53 percent of whom were Jews. The Nazi authorities imposed a series of discriminatory measures against the Jewish population. Jews were also forced to pay ransoms and
systematically dispossessed of their belongings and gold. Those over the age of 10 were required to wear a
yellow badge on their chest and backs and were forbidden to walk on sidewalks. To humiliate the Jews, the Germans and their
Ukrainian collaborators cut the beards and
payos of religious Jews, including the city's rabbi, in a practice reportedly called "taking the Jews to the barber." On August 4, an additional 1,882 Jews were shot to death at the same site. Able-bodied men were sent to forced
labor camps at
Proskurov and
Leznyevo, leaving 150 Jewish workers in the ghetto. The Soviet
Red Army liberated Zinkov in March 1944, ending the Nazi occupation of Zinkiv. Only approximately 30 Jews in Zinkiv survived the war.
Languages According to the
2001 Ukrainian Census, the following languages were spoken in Zinkiv: == Gallery ==