Place:Makhnovka, Vinnytsia, Ukraine

Name

The Russian name is typically transliterated as Makhnovka. The Yiddish name varies slightly, but may be transliterated as Machnovka, Machnowka, or even Machnivka (which seems closest to the pronunciation reported by several grandchildren of emigrants from this shtetl). More significantly, the name of the town was entirely changed in 1935 to Komsomol's'ke (or Komsomolskoye), which was a very common town name during the Soviet era (meaning something like "young communist league town"). In 2001, the village council elected to return to their historic name of Makhnovka.

Research Tips

There is a "shtetlink" page for this town on the JewishGen website, containing a fair amount of information about the town's history and its Jewish emigrants, and is an information exchange for descendants of emigrants from this town.

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names