Balin

Jews began to settle in Balin in the 18th century. In 1765 177 Jews were living in the village. After the murder of local Jews during the Haidamak uprising, the Jewish population of Balin remained low. The Balin area became part of the Russian Empire in 1793. Balin's Jewish population increased during the 19th century, reaching 357 in 1897, when the Jews comprised 22 percent of the total population of Balin. Aharon Ashman, a Hebrew poet and playwright who moved to the Land of Israel, was born in Balin. During the Russian civil war (1918-1920) a pogrom was carried out in the village. During the 1920s and the 1930s the majority of Balin's Jews worked on the nearby Jewish kolkhoz Fray Mi ("free labor" in Yiddish). In 1926 Balin's Jews numbered 293, comprising 7.5 percent of the total population. The Germans entered Balin on July 10, 1941 and immediately appointed a village elder. The Jews were ordered to wear yellow patches on their chests and backs, to hand over their money and valuables, and to pay special taxes under the threat of death. The men and teen age boys were taken to perform hard physical labor. The women and girls were made to clean the streets and the toilets at the German officers' quarters, to feed the animals, etc. The Jews were often abused and randomly shot to death by the Germans. On September 2 or 4, 1942 the Jews of Balin were collected on the village square and, after a selection, the old and sick people and women with little children were taken outside the village and shot to death. The rest, those considered capable of work, were taken to Kamenets-Podolsk. The able- bodied men were taken to Kamenets-Podolsk the day before the mass murder, while on the day itself an additional group of young people capable of work was selected and sent to Kamenets-Podolsk. Balin was liberated by the Red Army on March 31, 1944.