the Lyady Ghetto

Lyady (Yiddish: Ladi; Belarussian: Lyady) In the early twentieth century, there were about 3,700 Jews in Lyady, some eighty percent of the population. During the era of Soviet rule, many Jews continued to practice artisan trades, some in cooperatives, while many others turned to farming. Lyady had a school that taught in Yiddish. Urbanization, industrialization, and economic problems prompted many Jews to leave Lyady during the Soviet period; on the eve of the German invasion, approximately 900 Jews remained in the townlet, accounting for some forty percent of the population. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, a number of Jews in Lyady were inducted into the Red Army. A few managed to escape into the Soviet interior, but many who attempted to flee were forced to turn back. The Germans occupied Lyady on July 18, 1941. On September 27, they led all local Jews to the Jewish cemetery and murdered several young Jewish partisans as the population looked on. Afterwards, the Germans separated out all the young people, subjected them to beatings, and demanded that the community pay a ransom to spare their lives. The following day, twenty-five artisans and members of Jewish intelligentsia were murdered near the townlet. The others were conscripted for forced labor. In the ensuing months, Jews from previously destroyed communities made their way to Lyady. In early March 1942, all Jews in Lyady and from townlets and villages in the vicinity were concentrated in a ghetto that was set up in the local school. The site was surrounded with barbed wire and guarded by Germans and Belarussian police. Non-Jews were forbidden to venture anywhere near it. No one was allowed out of the ghetto except Jews who worked at the local kolkhoz or who buried the dead. Hunger, overcrowding, and disease soon claimed many lives. A number of ghetto inhabitants managed to escape and join the partisans. The Lyady ghetto was liquidated on April 2, 1942, when its inhabitants were murdered near the townlet.