Jody

The first Jews settled in Jody probably at the begining of the 20th century. Many local Jews were petty artisans, owned shops or flour mills, or were small-scale merchants. In the interwar period, when Jody was in independent Poland, the basic Jewish traditional institutions, such synagogues and a cemetery were established. On September 17, 1939 the Red Army entered Jody and established Soviet rule there. During the first weeks of the war Jewish refugees fled there from territories that the Nazis had occupied in Poland. In the framework of sovietization private shops were nationalized or closed down and were replaced by government cooperatives. Some well-off merchants were deported to punishment camps in the USSR. On June 22, 1941 the Germans invaded the USSR. The Soviets withdrew before the advancing German troops and some local Jews left with them. A week or two later the Germans entered the town, but before that Lithuanian nationalists formed an anti-Soviet militia. On July 21, 1941 German troops from Einsatzgruppe B entered Jody but did not stop there. The Jews of Jody were murdered on December 17, 1941 and buried in pits. Jody was liberated by the Red Army in July 1944.