Ryasna

The first documented Jewish presence in Ryasna dates to the mid-19th century. In 1923 there were 739 Jews in the town, amounting to approximately 65 percent of the total population. A Yiddish elementary school and a Yiddish drama group functioned in Ryasna. In the 1920s most local Jews were craftsmen or small merchants. Some Jews were organized into local agricultural cooperatives. Later in the 1930s a number of Jews worked on a nearby kolkhoz. A few Jews from Ryasna succeeded in being evacuated before the Germans occupied Ryasna in July 1941. At the beginning of the occupation the Jews were forced to wear yellow badges, then they were forced to live in two streets that were closed off. The Jews of Ryasna were murdered in an operation that took place on March 1942. Ryasna was liberated by the Red Army on September 30, 1943.