Skvira

Jews apparently lived in Skvira since the late 17th century. In the 1730s Skvira's Jews suffered from attacks by the Haidamaks. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the town was famous for its Chassidic court. Only since the mid-19th century, with the economic development of the area, did the Jewish population of Skvira start to grow significantly. In 1897 Skvira's 8,910 Jews comprised 49.6 percent of the town's total population. Most of Skvira's Jews were small-scale merchants or craftsmen. The prominent Zionist thinker Ahad Ha'am (Asher Zvi-Hirsh Ginsberg) was born in Skvira in 1856. The Jews of Skvira suffered greatly from the violence of the revolutionary years and civil war in Russia. Scores of Jews lost their lives in a wave of pogroms between 1917 and 1919 that were carried out by various warring parties. Much Jewish property was looted or destroyed in these pogroms. Many Jews abandoned the town for safer places during this period. In the 1920s a town council with deliberations in Yiddish was established in Skvira. There was also a four-year Yiddish school with a drama circle. In 1922 the "Kultur Lige" (Culture League), that promoted the Yiddish language and Yiddish culture opened a Yiddish library in the town. During the 1920s and 1930s many Jews of Skvira, especially the younger ones, left for larger towns and cities in search of educational and vocational opportunities. In 1939 2,243 Jews were living in Skvira, where they constituted 20.3 percent of the total population. After the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939 Jewish refugees from Poland arrived in Skvira. More than half of Skvira's Jews apparently managed to leave the town before it was occupied by German forces on July 14, 1941. On the first day that the Germans entered Skvira they murdered about 20 Jews, including several children. The Jews of Skvira were ordered to wear yellow Stars of David on the chest and the back of their clothes. The Jews of Skvira were assaulted, robbed of their possessions, and forced to perform various kinds of grueling work. Most of the remaining Skvira Jews, numbering about 1,000, were murdered in late September 1941 at the Jewish cemetery. The Red Army liberated Skvira on December 29, 1943.