Vokvad NE ss [C]* Jewish burials | Russia's Necropolis of Terror and the Gulag

Vokvad NE ss [C]* Jewish burials

Card

№11-56

Date of burial
1941-1942
Show Map
Address
Komi Republic, Koigorodsky district, Vokvad settlement (non-existent)
Access outside a populated area
Private or specialised transport
On foot
Comments
Accessible by rowboat in dry weather, then on foot
Visiting Hours or Restrictions
Unrestricted
Type of burial
Deportees’ graveyard
Current use
Excursions
Ceremonial events
Presence of memorials, etc.
No
Protected status
Not protected
Background

The Vokvad special settlement, run by the Sysolsk Forestry Concern, was set up in the early 1930s by dekulakized peasant families deported from the Northern Region and the Soviet German Republic on the Volga.

In June 1940 a group of 300 Polish citizens, Jewish “refugees”, were sent there. Inhabitants of the special settlement recall that “in 1940-1942 all the refugees died”. Their bodies were interred in a separate burial ground in the forest, 1.5 kms from the settlement. The exact numbers buried there is not known.

In the 1950s the area was ploughed up and is today covered by young trees. The settlement was officially closed on 17 September 1974.

Books of Remembrance

The Memorial online database (2025) lists 129,473 victims in the Komi Republic. (See Nizhny Chov.)

They include a vast number of families and individuals (total 64,165) deported to the Republic: 20,366 during collectivisation (1929-35), a massive influx in 1940 from occupied Polish territory (19,367) and more in the 1940s and 1950s (6,699). 597 are listed as dying in Komi (but cf. Tomsk Region police figures).

The database (2025) lists families and individuals (total 1,308) sent to Vokvad as forced settlers (920 in 1930, many of them German) and 213 subsequently born there. It names families and individuals (total 257)  deported there in 1940, identifying 94 heads of families as Jews from Polish territory.

Ceremonies
DateNature of ceremoniesOrganiser or responsible personParticipantsFrequency
July
Commemorative visit by descendants of those who lived in Vokvad
descendants of those who lived in Vokvad
descendants of those who lived in Vokvad
Annual event
Nature of area requiring preservation
State of burialsAreaBoundaries
have not survived
not determined
not delineated
Administrative responsibility and ownership, informal responsibility for the site
On land under the control of the Koigorodsky district administration
Sources and bibliography

[ Original texts & hyperlinks ]

T. Chugayeva, “A candle floats on the water”, Respublika (Syktyvkar), 31 July 2010             

“Kiselyov’s list: about the Polish Jews in Vokvad”, Blog.ru, 24 December 2008

 

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