Kletnya

Jews first settled in Kletnya (which until the mid-1930s was called Lyudinka) in 1881, two years after the town was founded. In 1897 the 42 Jews in the town comprised about 6 per cent of the total population. Under Soveit rule in the 1920s there was a Yiddish class in the local school. A Jewish agricultural commune, Krasnoye znamya (Red Banner), functioned in Kletnya from 1928 until 1932 or 1933. In 1939 Kletnya's 286 Jews comprised 4 per cent of the total population. The town was occupied by the Germans on August 10, 1941. Some sources say that as soon as the Germans occupied Kletnya one mentally ill Jew was murdered. A group of six Jewish men was murdered several days later. In late autumn 1941 a ghetto was established in Kletnya. Most of the local Jews were shot to death in April 1942. Kletnya was liberated by the Red Army on September 20, 1943.