Orinin

Jewish settlement in Orinin began at the end of the 16th century. During the Chmielnitsky uprising (1648-1649) the town was razed and the Jewish community annihilated. The Jewish community was apparently reestablished during the 18th century. In 1897 Jewish population was 2,142 or 37 percent of the total population. During the first days of World War I Cossacks units carried out a pogrom against Orinin's Jews. In 1919, during the pogroms of the Russian civil war, the Ukrainian army of Symon Petliura killed 40 Jews in Orinin, wounded many others, and looted Jewish property. Under the Soviets the town had a Jewish council and a Jewish kolkhoz called "Nayer Veg" ("New Way" in Yiddish). Jewish craftsmen and artisans worked in state-owned cooperatives, such as that of the tailors, "Royter kustar" ("Red Artisan" in Yiddish). A Yiddish school with a library operated in the town until the late 1930s. In 1939 the Jewish population of 1,508 comprised 25.3 percent of the total.

On July 7, 1942 the Germans entered Orinin. According to one testimony, apparently in the late summer of 1941, a group of Jews from the Hungarian-controlled Carpatho-Rus area was deported to Orinin by the Hungarian authorities. After being held for about 10 days at a printing house, the Jews were shot to death by Germans. Several Jews, mainly teenagers who had managed to escape the shooting, returned to Orinin. Several Jewish families in the town took them into their homes and rovided them with food. After a short period of time the escapees left Orinin.

In late June 1942 the local Jews, apparently some refugees, and Jews from the nearby localities, were ordered to assemble at the town square. A selection was carried out and about 250 skilled workers were put aside and transferred to the Kamenets-Podolsk ghetto. The rest, guarded by Ukrainian auxiliary police, were shot to death by Germans outside of the town. The valuables of the victims were taken to Kamenets-Podolsk; other items were given to the Ukrainian policemen and the collective farmers. After the murder operation the Germans looted the Jewish homes in Orinin.

Orinin was liberated by the Red Army on March 25, 1944.