Janow

In 1921, Janów was home to 2,000 Jews, who made up approximately two thirds of the town's population. They were merchants and artisans who dealt mainly in agricultural produce, food, lumber, and wood products. A Jewish-owned sawmill employed hundreds of laborers. The town had a Tarbut school and (for a time) a yeshiva. The development of transportation and trade led to demographic growth, and, on the eve of World War II, the Jewish community of Janów numbered about 3,000 members, or about a half of the total population. The Red Army occupied Janów on September 17, 1939. During the Soviet period, the town was renamed "Ivanovo." Jewish organizations were shut down, and the Tarbut school was transformed into a Soviet Yiddish school. The property of the more affluent Jews was nationalized, and, on June 20, 1941, twenty wealthy and prominent Jewish families were arrested and deported to the Asian parts of Russia. Following the German occupation of Janów on June 25, 1941, the local Jews were subjected to a host of restrictions, including: a ban on consorting with Christians, the compulsory wearing of white armbands with blue Stars of David, a curfew from 6 PM until 8 AM, and a prohibition on using the sidewalks. The first two massacres of the Jews of Janów took place in July and early August 1941, when a total of several hundred Jewish men were shot in the vicinity of the town and in the area of Borovitsy. In the wake of this operation, a ten-member Judenrat, chaired by Alter Divinski, and a Jewish Order Police unit were established. The Judenrat supplied the Germans with forces laborers and ransom payments. It also took care of health and sanitation, and operated a soup kitchen and a hospital. On April 12, 1942, the Germans set up a ghetto in Janów. It was surrounded with barbed wire, and its inmates were forbidden to leave it without a permit, speak with Christians, or buy food from them. In June 1942, a group of Jews from Janów was killed at the Bronnaya Gora Station murder site, together with Jews from Drohichyn and Horodec. Most of the ghetto inmates were annihilated in two large-scale massacres in late September 1942, in the forest near the village of Rudsk and in the ghetto itself. Afterward, the Germans set up a new ghetto known as the "Small Ghetto", which housed about 100 artisans, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and sawmill workers whose lives had been spared. The "Small Ghetto" was liquidated a month and a half later. According to some sources, prior to the liquidation two Jewish partisans from Janów entered the ghetto to warn its inmates about the imminent destruction, but the Jews did not trust them and chose to stay in the ghetto. The exact location of the murder site is unknown. Janów was liberated by the Red Army on July 16, 1944.