http://www.msu.edu/~shlapent/memoire.htm
EMILCHINO
On my father’s side, the attitude toward the Soviet regime was even more straightforward, although here as well it is hard to get the whole picture with just one color. My father’s parents were even richer before the revolution than my mother’s parents were. They owned many houses in Kiev. And my grandmother – a real beauty, in as far as one could judge by the photograph that disappeared during the war, spent a great deal of time in Paris. My grandfather and grandmother died in poverty after the revolution (before I was born). My father, as a product of the bourgeois family, had a really hard time. He was denied enrolment in the medical college for a long while. Finally, he was assigned to work in a small village upon graduation and this deprived him of the familiar cultural milieu. He had no reasons to be positively inclined towards the Soviet regime, and he, as one can imagine, hated it intensely. Just as my grandfather, somehow adapting to the new and hateful conditions, he nevertheless was moving up the social ladder albeit at a low level. His first assignment was in the out-of-the-way village Golyshi, where his only talking companion was the local priest.

My father was a very handsome man and he got attracted to the priest’s wife, as we know from the family squabbles. In the end, he was transferred to a small town Emilchino in the same Kiev province. That was where the estate of the well-known count Uvarov used to be before the revolution. (One of the Uvarovs was a Tsarist minister). Uvarov’s burial crypt was vandalized many times – a typical occurrence in those days.

Emilchino, before the war, was a largish town with a sizeable proportion of Jews; it was totally destroyed by the Germans. In the beginning of the war the radio newscasts “From the Soviet Inform-bureau” reported not only about military actions but also about the Nazi victims. In one of those newscasts in July 1941, the little town of Emilchino, completely unknown to the rest of the world, was mentioned. This was where the Germans had buried children alive. (Probably, these were those children that I used to see on the streets. At that time I was not allowed to play with them because of the social origin of my father). It is precisely in that little town that my father became the chief doctor and a supervisor of the local department of health. This was a nomenklatura appointment of some significance at the local level. In this rank he became a part of the “local elite.” We were particularly friendly with the family of the district Executive Committee of Soviets chair Zaretsky, who took me sometimes for a ride in a car (Soviet car model M-1). This was a big event in the life of a ten-year-old boy. (I meticulously counted all the rides). The railway station Yablunovka was 20 kilometers away from Emilchino and usually we got there by a farm cart along with some other ten people and a Jewish coachman joker. We got a ride there by car only on extremely infrequent occasions. In Ukraine, my father created the first “houses for birth-giving” – simple village homes where midwives could assist peasant women in childbirth (when the doctor was not available). This was regarded as “administrative initiative,” because peasant women usually gave birth at home. The story got into the newspapers. In 1935, my father was elected delegate to the All-Union Congress of Physicians. He was recounting, not without pride, the speech of the People’s Commissar Kantorovich (who, upon Stalin’s order, he was shot two years later).

The mass terror of 1937 could only have strengthened my grandfather and father’s loathing of the system. I remember as we were riding on a train abandoning Emilchino (my father was seriously ill then), my father put his finger up against his mouth, and showed me a newspaper report that the Chairman of the Ukrainian Government Liubchenko and his wife had committed suicide. The newspaper claimed that they “had entangled themselves in antiparty ties.” My father was quite sardonic about such an interpretation of their death, which gave away his political stance. Terror puzzled my aunts (fervent Communists) as well as my uncle (then an active Komsomol member) and even my apolitical mother. In 1940 when we were already in Kiev, she had the courage to invite for a visit the wife of the former district NKVD chief in Emilchino Aleksandrov. She told the stories of how she was harassed by her husband’s former colleagues after he had been arrested.

http://www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/e-europe/ukra-e-f.html

EMILCHINO I: US Commission No. UA05050501 [sic-same number as next]

Alternate name: Mezhirichka (Yiddish), Yemelchino (German), Emiltchina (Hungarian), Jemilcino (English) and Yemilcheno (Russian). Emilchino is located in Zhitomirskaya at 50.52.27.48, 154km from Zhitomir and 114km from Rovno. The mass grave is located at Vorovskogo Street 8A. Present town population is 5,001-25,000 with 11-100 Jews.

Town officials: Village Executive Council of Chairman -Didus Mikhail Ivanovich [Phone: (041494) 2490].
Regional: Protection of Cultural Memorials Society of Borisyuk N.E. [Phone: (0412) 370807]. Regional Protection of Cultural Memorials Society of Emelchino, 1 May Street, [Phone: (041494) 2394].
Interested: Shargel Bronislava Shimonovna of Emelchino, Vorovskogo Street 4.

The earliest known Jewish community was 1897. 1926 Jewish population (census) was 1383. Tihiy Naum Mironovich lived here. The unlandmarked Hasidic Jewish mass grave was dug in 1941 for this town’s Jews only. The isolated urban flat land has signs or plaques in Ukrainian mentioning the Holocaust. Reached by turning directly off a public road, access is open to all. No wall, fence, or gate surrounds the site. No stones were removed. Common tombstones date from 1995. The site contains marked mass graves. Municipality owns mass grave now used for mass burial site and shop. Adjacent properties are commercial or industrial. The mass grave boundaries are larger now than 1939. The mass grave is visited rarely by local residents. The mass grave has been not been vandalized in the last 10 years. There is no maintenance. Within the limits of the mass grave is village shop. Very serious threat: vandalism and existing nearby development (After World War II, the village shop was built. «The ashes was dig out.»). Moderate threat: uncontrolled access and proposed nearby development. Slight threat: pollution and vegetation. No threat: weather erosion.

EMELCHINO II: US Commission No. UA05050101
See EMELCHINO I for town information. The last known Hasidic Jewish burial was 1993. Yablonets (12km away) and Baranin (12km away) used this unlandmarked cemetery. The wooded on flat land, separate but near other cemeteries, has no sign or marker. Reached by turning directly off a public road, access is open to all. No wall, fence, or gate surrounds this cemetery. 101 to 500 stones, most in original location with less than 25% toppled or broken, date from 1921. Location of removed stones is unknown. Some have portraits on stones and/or metal fences around graves. The cemetery contains marked mass graves. The property is now used for Jewish cemetery only. Adjacent properties are «other.» The cemetery boundaries are larger now than 1939. The cemetery is visited rarely by local residents. The cemetery was vandalized not in the last 10 years. Now, there is occasional clearing or cleaning by individuals. Within the limits of the cemetery are no structures. Vegetation overgrowth is a constant problem, disturbing graves. Moderate threat: uncontrolled access, vegetation and vandalism. Slight threat: weather erosion, pollution and proposed nearby development. No threat: existing nearby development.

http://www.msu.edu/~shlapent/memoire.htm
…In the end, he was transferred to a small town Emilchino in the same Kiev province. That was where the estate of the well-known count Uvarov used to be before the revolution. (One of the Uvarovs was a Tsarist minister). Uvarov’s burial crypt was vandalized many times – a typical occurrence in those days.

Emilchino, before the war, was a largish town with a sizeable proportion of Jews; it was totally destroyed by the Germans. In the beginning of the war the radio newscasts “From the Soviet Inform-bureau” reported not only about military actions but also about the Nazi victims. In one of those newscasts in July 1941, the little town of Emilchino, completely unknown to the rest of the world, was mentioned. This was where the Germans had buried children alive. (Probably, these were those children that I used to see on the streets. At that time I was not allowed to play with them because of the social origin of my father). It is precisely in that little town that my father became the chief doctor and a supervisor of the local department of health. This was a nomenklatura appointment of some significance at the local level. In this rank he became a part of the “local elite.” We were particularly friendly with the family of the district Executive Committee of Soviets chair Zaretsky, who took me sometimes for a ride in a car (Soviet car model M-1). This was a big event in the life of a ten-year-old boy. (I meticulously counted all the rides). The railway station Yablunovka was 20 kilometers away from Emilchino and usually we got there by a farm cart along with some other ten people and a Jewish coachman joker. We got a ride there by car only on extremely infrequent occasions.

In Ukraine, my father created the first “houses for birth-giving” – simple village homes where midwives could assist peasant women in childbirth (when the doctor was not available). This was regarded as “administrative initiative,” because peasant women usually gave birth at home. The story got into the newspapers. In 1935, my father was elected delegate to the All-Union Congress of Physicians. He was recounting, not without pride, the speech of the People’s Commissar Kantorovich (who, upon Stalin’s order, he was shot two years later).
The mass terror of 1937 could only have strengthened my grandfather and father’s loathing of the system. I remember as we were riding on a train abandoning Emilchino (my father was seriously ill then), my father put his finger up against his mouth, and showed me a newspaper report that the Chairman of the Ukrainian Government Liubchenko and his wife had committed suicide. The newspaper claimed that they “had entangled themselves in antiparty ties.” My father was quite sardonic about such an interpretation of their death, which gave away his political stance.

Terror puzzled my aunts (fervent Communists) as well as my uncle (then an active Komsomol member) and even my apolitical mother. In 1940 when we were already in Kiev, she had the courage to invite for a visit the wife of the former district NKVD chief in Emilchino Aleksandrov. She told the stories of how she was harassed by her husband’s former colleagues after he had been arrested.

http://www.centropa.org/archive.asp?mode=bio&DB=HIST&fn=Maria&ln=Reidman&country=Ukraine
My grandfather was born in Medvedovo in 1870. Medvedovo was a Polish village. The population was mostly Polish; there were only a few Ukrainians and even fewer Jews. My grandmother told me that everybody liked her father-in-law. His name was Yankel Roizberg, and he was a respectable man in his village. He had three daughters and one son, my grandfather. His children didn’t get any education because there was no cheder in the village. My great-grandfather was a cattle dealer and owned a small pub. 

My grandfather Peisah was in the business with his father. The Roizberg family wasn’t very religious. They didn’t follow the kashrut and didn’t pray at home every day. They only celebrated the most important holidays. They celebrated Sabbath, New Year, Pesach and Yom Kippur. They went to the synagogue in Omelcheno, the district town because there was no synagogue in Medvedovo. They followed the tradition to have separate dishes for dairy and meat products.