Chernobyl

Jews are first mentioned as living in Chernobyl in the first half of the 17th century. The Jews of Chernobyl suffered greatly during the uprising (1648-1649) of Bogdan Chmelnitsky and during the Cossack and Haidamak uprisings of the late 17th and 18th centuries. From the mid-18th century Chernobyl was known in the Jewish world as an important center of Hassidism. Until the late 18th century, when Chernobyl became part of the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire, only several hundred Jews lived in the town. Only in the 19th century, with the economic development of the area, did the Jewish population of the town start to grow significantly. In 1897 it reached 5,526, or 59.1 percent of the total population. Most of Chernobyl's Jews were artisans or small-scale merchants. On the eve of World War I Jews played a dominant role in the economic life of Chernobyl, owning most of the shops in the town. In the early 20th century there was significant Zionist activity, including that of a branch of the HeHalutz movement, which trained young Jews for agricultural work in the Land of Israel. In 1905 there was a pogrom in Chernobyl. Later the Jews of Chernobyl suffered greatly from the violence that accompanied the years of revolution and civil war in Russia. In April-May 1919 the town was occupied by an armed gang of Ilya Struk, whose members murdered about 150 Jews, raped Jewish women, and looted or destroyed Jewish houses and shops. The ban imposed by Soviet rule on private economic activity left many of Chernobyl's Jews without any means of subsistence. The artisans united in cooperatives according to their specialization, but the situation of these cooperatives was very poor since they had great difficulty in obtaining raw materials. Some local Jews turned to agriculture. In the late 1920s two Jewish collective farms, "Naye Veg" (New Way) and "Royter Poyer" (Red Peasant), were established near Chernobyl. By the late 1930s only the former was still in existence. In the 1920s and 1930s Chernobyl had a 7-year school with Yiddish as the language of instruction, as well as a Jewish kindergarten and a Jewish orphanage. In the 1920s and 1930s many Jews, especially the younger ones, left Chernobyl for larger towns and cities in search of educational and vocational opportunities. In 1939 1,783 Jews were living in Chernobyl, where they comprised 21 percent of the total population. German troops occupied Chernobyl on August 25, 1941. Apparently most of the town's Jews succeeded in leaving before the entry of the German forces. In early November of the same year many of the Jews in Chernobyl were murdered at the Jewish cemetery on the town's outskirts. The Red Army liberated Chernobyl on September 28, 1943. However, the Germans succeeded in recapturing the town on October 5. Chernobyl was finally liberated on November 17, 1943. In 1986 the entire population of Chernobyl was evacuated following the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.