Ushomir

The earliest reference to the presence of Jews in Ushomir dates to 1765, when the village had seventy-two Jewish residents. By the end of the 19th century, their number had grown to 1,754 (about seventy-four percent of the total population). In 1914, the local Jews were actively involved in the town's economy, owning a number of shops and a sawmill with twenty-two employees. A Zionist cell was active in the town. In the summer of 1919, non-Jews from nearby settlements came to Ushomir and protected the local Jews from a pogrom. However, it was followed by three more pogroms that same year, resulting in the deaths of thirty Jews and the wounding of many others. In 1924, the town had cooperatives of blacksmiths and wheelwrights, and a Yiddish school with 130 pupils opened there that year. In 1926, Ushomir was home to 1,749 Jews, who made up seventy-one percent of the total population. Ushomir was occupied by German troops on August 6, 1941. Apparently, most of the local Jews had managed to evacuate into the Soviet interior by that point. All the Jewish men remaining in the town were murdered shortly after the beginning of the occupation. Ushomir was liberated by the Red Army on December 30, 1943.