Yarun

The first reference to Jewish settlement in Yarun' relates to 1765, when the only four Jews living in the village were considered part of the Jewish community of Korets. During the following decades the Jewish population did not grow significantly. Two prayer houses functioned in Yarun' in the late 19th century. Between 1882 and 1903 Jews were not permitted to live in Yarun' but later this prohibition was cancelled. In 1914 Yarun' Jews owned two grocery shops, a honey production factory, and a steam mill. In 1937 the village became the county center of the newly established Zhitomir Disctrict. In 1939 the 386 Jews of Yarun' comprised about 20 percent of its total population. Yarun' was occupied by German troops on July 4, 1941. Some Jews tried to flee to the east a short time before the occupation but many of them were returned home by the Germans. A ghetto surrounded by barbed wire was established in the village shortly after the occupation start ed. Among its inmates were also Jews from Povchin and other nearby villages The living conditions in the ghetto were hard: the Jews were used for some forced labor jobs and local policemen raided the ghetto to obtain valuables. The Yarun' ghetto was established soon after the occupation. The local Jews and ones from other villages of the county were put into some houses and the area was surrounded by barbed wire. The first attempt to eliminate the ghetto population was taken on September 1, 1941. The Jews were collected and taken across the river, apparently, to the shooting site but, due to heavy rain, the operation was cancelled. According to some testimonies, shortly after that the ghetto commandant managed to persuade the German authorities in Novograd Volynskiy to keep the ghetto population alive to exploit their forced labor. Thus, the ghetto liquidation was postponed until late spring in 1942. In November 1941 several dozen work capable Jews were sent from the Yarun' ghetto to the camp in Novograd Volynskiy . Some of the camp inmates managed to escape later. The surviving ghetto inmates were shot to death in early May 1942. Yarun' was liberated by the Red Army on January 7, 1944.