The Great Synagogue in Illintsi, Ukraine, was burned irreparably last Thursday by fire.
The 18th-century structure, about 130 miles northeast of the country’s capital of Kiev, collapsed due to the flames.
It had been used since the end of the Holocaust as a furniture factory and carpentry workshop, according to the Jewish Heritage Europe website.
JTA reported that before World War II, the majority of Illintsi’s population was Jewish.
In July 1941, the Germans entered the town and rounded the Jews into a ghetto. In April 1942, about 1,000 Jews from the town and nearby villages were killed in a mass execution, and 700 others were murdered at the end of May that year.
At the end of 1942, the remaining Jews of Illintsi were deported to a labor camp, and the ghetto was destroyed, wrote JTA.
