Dymer

The village of Dymer was founded in 1582. Jews settled in Dymer in the 17th century, around the time that Dymer became a town. In 1847 there were 273 Jews living there; by 1897 their number increased to 984, which was about 30 percent of the total population. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Jews of Dymer made their living mainly from artisanship and small trade. In the late 19th century there was a Jewish owned factory in the town. In 1912 a Jewish loans–and-savings association operated in Dymer. During the Russian civil war the Jews of Dymer suffered from a number of pogroms. While one of them was prevented by Jewish soldiers in January 1918, a pogrom was carried out by soldiers of the Volunteer Army on September 5, 1919. During this pogrom many Jews were beaten, several dozen Jewish women were abused and local non-Jews were forbidden to shelter Jews or protect their possessions. Another pogrom followed in November of the same year. In 1926 the Jewish population of Dymer amounted to 238 or about 6.5 percent of the total population. In 1939 the 153 Dymer's Jews comprised about 4 percent of the town's total population. Dymer was occupied on August 25, 1941. Apparently, the first group of Dymer Jews was shot on August 28, 1941 when 18 of them were taken to the Kiev Gestapo headquarters and shot there. Testimonies state that an unknown number of Jews from Dymer were taken to Kiev and shot at Babiy Yar. Some sources note that some of the people shot as Soviet activists in the forest behind the local hospital, shortly after the village's occupation, were Jews. The main mass shooting of Jews in Dymer took place in early November 1941. In 1942 a fews non-Jewish wives of Jews and children from mixed marriages were shot in the town. Dymer was liberated by the Red Army on November 4, 1943.