Raygorod

Jews started to settle in Raygorod in the first half of the 18th century. The Jews of Raygorod suffered greatly during the uprising of the Haidamaks in the 1760s, when many Jews left the town. In 1897 Raygorod's 995 Jews comprised 44.4 percent of the total population. Raygorod's Jews experienced the calamities of the revolutionary years and civil war in Russia. About 60 Jews were murdered during a pogrom in May 1919. Many Jews abandoned Raygorod during this period and did not return after the situation stabilized. In 1926 413 Jews lived in Raygorod, where they comprised 15.9 percent of the total population. Migration from Raygorod continued during the early Soviet period, when many young Jews left the town in search of educational and vocational opportunities. In the 1920s and 1930s a Yiddish school operated in Raygorod and a Jewish kolkhoz was established in the town in the late 1920s. After the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union Jewish refugees from Bessarabia arrived in Raygorod. The Germans occupied Raygorod in the second half of July 1941. Few Jews succeeded in leaving before the arrival of German troops. Soon thereafter all the Jews of Raygorod were ordered to wear Stars of David on their clothes - on the chest and the back. In late 1941 a ghetto was established to imprison all the local Jews. The ghetto inmates were forced to perform various kinds of grueling labor. Those unable to work were shot. In early 1942 a labor camp was established in Raygorod. The inmates of the camp worked on the construction of Thoroughfare IV, a road which was to connect west Ukrainian Lwów and south Russian Taganrog. Some of Raygorod's Jews were transferred to the Bratslav labor camp in the Romanian zone of occupation. On June 26, 1941 about 200 inmates of the Bratslav camp deemed unable to work, including Raygorod Jews sent to Bratslav earlier, were brought back to Raygorod. The next day those Jews in the Raygorod camp who were considered unfit to work were killed in the forest in the vicinity of Raygorod. Shortly afterwards the Raygorod Jewish labor camp was liquidated, with its able-bodied inmates being transferred to the Bratslav camp and later to the Pechora camp, also in the Romanian occupation zone. Many of these Jews were either murdered or died of inhuman conditions, epidemics, or exhausting labor. The Red Army liberated Raygorod in mid-March 1944.