Yanov

Jews lived in Yanov since the late 17th or early 18th century. In the 1760s the Jews of Yanov suffered from attacks by the Haidamaks and the number of the Jews in Yanov declined. Only in the 19th century, with the economic development of the town, did Yanov's Jewish population start to increase. In 1897 Yanov's 2,088 Jews comprised 37.7 percent of the town’s total population. Most of Yanov’s Jews were small-scale merchants or artisans. Yanov's Jews suffered greatly from the violence during the revolutionary years and the civil war in Russia. About 300 Jews were murdered in a single pogrom that lasted from July 11 to 14, 1919. At the beginning of the Soviet period Yanov had a branch of the Zionist HeHalutz organization, which trained young Jews for agricultural work in the Land of Israel. Soviet social policy and economic conditions both affected Yanov's Jews, forcing many of them to search for new occupations. Some of them turned to agriculture. In the 1930s two Jewish collective farms - Kaganovich and Khlebopashets ("Farmer") were established in Yanov. From 1924 there was a seven-year Yiddish school in Yanov. The Jewish town council, that was established in the 1920s, supported this school. In 1926 1,931 Jews lived in Yanov, where they comprised 25.8 percent of the total population. Yanov was occupied by the Germans on July 27, 1941. On the very first day of the occupation several Yanov Jews, including Shteyngard, the chairman of the Jewish town council, were murdered. All the Jews were forced to mark their houses with the letter J and to sew Stars of David onto their clothes. In March 1942 Yanov's Jews were forced to pay a 100,000 ruble "tax" and were forced into one area on the town’s outskirts. In April of the same year Jews were required to hand over the gold, money, and other valuables they still possessed. In late May and early June 1942 about 1,000 Jews from Yanov were murdered on the town’s outskirts. Yanov was liberated by the Red Army in mid-March 1944.