Yagotyn

Yagotin is a town in Kiev region, the center of Kiev district. It is situated on the river Supoy. According to the census of 2015, its population is 20,232 people.

Before the revolution Yagotin was a shtetl of Piriatin uyezd, Poltava province. In 1957, the village Lisniaki was incorperated into Yagotin. In the pre-revolutionary period a considerable number of Jews were living in this village. In 1910, there were 34 Jewish families; which was 85% of the whole population. That is why the statistics on the actual size of the Jewish population throughout the history of Yagotin has been quite inaccurate.

Some information for this article was taken from the interview of native of Yagotin Miron Manilov (1921-?) from centropa.org.

Beginning

Yahotyn was founded in 1552. At the end of XVII – beginning of the XIX century, Yahotyn, which belonged to Kirill Razumovsky and his son, Aleksey Kirillovich, became a remarkable commercial and industrial centre (4 fairs annually, a trade in Crimean salt, sericulture and a hosiery factory). The Jewish community is thought to have been established during this period.

In 1882, the village fell under the ‘Vremennyye Pravila’ (‘Transitional Provisions’, a regulation of the Committee of Ministers of 3 May 1882 restricting the right of Jews to live in rural areas). However, from 1903 onwards, the village was again open to Jews wishing to settle there. According to the census of 1897, Yahotyn’s Jewish community numbered 943.

In 1910, there was a private Jewish school in Yahotyn.

According to the business directory of the Russian Empire of 1903, the following people owned such shops in Yagotin:
– grocer’s shops – Gersh Mordukhovich Gurevich, David-Gersh Yoselevich Manilov, Itsko Cherkasskiy.
– shop of agricultural equipment – Chaim-Berko Veniaminovich Gronfayn
– manufactory shops – Moisey Kaganskiy, Peysakh Yasnogorodskiy.

Gerdov family owned a teahouse at the bus station. Now it is a canteen.

Gerdov’s canteen, 2010’s

Aron Fayv Bratslavskiy and Chaim Zelik Khanin were the photographers in 1914.

Newspaper “Poltavshchina” from November 13, 1905 wrote: “Town Yagotin, Piriatinskiy uyezd. Bailiff Lavgovskiy imputed to the duties of the guardians to secure the Jews. He returned the things which were stolen in the pogrom. All honor to him.”

Before the Revolution there was only one synagogue in the shtetl.  In 1911, Kh. A. Sokolovskiy was a rabbi in Yagotin. Moyshe-Ber Manilov was his assistant (?-1936).

During the Civil War, according to documents of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, 5 Jews were killed in Yahotyn on April 4, 1919; on April 7, at night, Baryshevka’s Jewish community secretly buried their bodies in Baryshivka Jewish cemetery (on the insistence of authorities).

In the 1920’s, the synagogue was closed and turned into a club.

In the 1920’s, a Jewish school was opened in Yagotin. However, I could find neither its exact location nor the year of its closing.

JDC report about the state of Yagotyn Jewish community in 1923:

Yagotin, like the rest of the cities, has gone through all the evil days that hat fell to the lot of the Ukrainian Jewry. Admist the horrors of the pogrom wave the bloody invasion of Denikin detachments has registered on the pages of the history of Yagotyn the darkest reminiscenes.  Everywhere there are signs of destruction, at each step – widows and orphans, poverty, diseases and unemployment. Aside from several pogroms by Denikin, the Jews of Yagotin endured also a number of raids from petty bands who plundered away the pitiful remnants of property left after Denikin’s  exploits. At the present time Yagotin is in a specially sad state.

Before the war the population of Yagotin was composed of small traders and artisans who thrived more or less satisfactorily. The WWI at once undermined the material well-being of the citizens. Mobilizations rooted out the most productive elements or the population who left their homes and families without any material support. But all this pales into insignificance compared with what happened later during the Civil War period.

The first detachments of soviet armies confiscated all merchandise from the Jewish traders; mass arrests for speculation also brought ruin to the population; while enraged by its failures the Denikin army vent its wild wrath upon the helpless Jews. A number of persons had lost their lives before the arrival of the enraged Denikin troops. The latter let loose help upon the city, invaded the Jewish Homes destroying and pillaging everything they could not take away with them. Frequently they would murder the Jews whom they dragged from their hiding places; rape women and girls; in many cases under 14 years of age; leaving in the wake the horrible consequences of venereal diseases. Still greater miseries befell the towns around Yagotin. Towns, settlements and villages had gone through heart-stirring experiences. A number of localities, formerly populated by Jews’, are at present desolated stretches of land and the Jews have been driven from their old habitations. Families fortunate to remain alive but in rags and barefooted escaped to Yagotyn.

Supposedly, it was Yagotyn synagogue

Towns, settlements and villages had gone through heart-stirring experiences. A number of localities, formerly populated by Jews, are at present desolated stretches of land; and the Jews have been driven from their old habitations. Families fortunate to remain alive but in rags and barefooted escaped to Yagotin as the nearest refuge place hoping to find there some protection or their brother-Jews. The wave of refugees swelled from day to day. Yagotin has become a camp of beggars, widows ana orphans. All this crowded mass of Jews not only could not offer any help to the poor but itself felt the pinch of hard times. Then typhus broke out and as the medico-sanitary conditions were far from being able to meet the new situation many young people died prematurely. Very often the typhus carried away the head of the family leaving it to shift for itself. Thus the Jewish population of Yagotin found itself in awful conditions which lasted till the inauguration of the new economic policy. With the latter the condition of the Jews became somewhat improved; but not in any conspicuous degree. While petty commerce and trades showed a certain development, heavy taxes and the continued high cost of living in conjunction with low wages. During the famine year 1922 more than half of the population of Yagotin went hungary and some cases are on record of people died of starvation. About that time a group of social workers organized a relief committee which has been getting its funds through collections and self-taxation.

Finally we have addressed the Yagotyn Landsmanshaft in America with a request for aid. In response we have received 100 parcels thanks to which many a family has been saved from death by starvation. But all this proved to be a drop in the ocean…

Holocaust

During the Second World War, Yahotin was occupied from 15 September 1941 to 20 September 1943.

On October 5, 1941 a German murder squad arrived at Yagotin. In cooperation with the local authorities the squad’s members ordered the local Jews to assemble at 8 a.m. in the building of a local clubhouse that had been a synagogue. 280 Jews, mostly women, children, and old people, were taken to the area of the country estate that had belonged to the Repnin family. There they were forced to undress and then were shot in groups of 5-10 in a deep pit that had been dug in advance. Some of the girls and young women were raped before the shooting by the squad’s solders and the head of the local authority.
German reports indicate that on October 8, 1941 the town was searched for Jews by Sonderkommando 4a: 125 Jews were found and shot.

Reburial place of Holocaust victims in common Yagotyn cemetery

After the Soviet troops had been defeated near Kiev in 1941 a transit camp for Soviet war prisoners was organized in the territory of the collective farm. Jews appeared in this camp from time to time. They were shot in the forest at the river Supoy. Nowadays several gravestones were set on that place. The nationalities of the victims weren’t specified.  The exact number of people who were shot is unknown.  It could be from some hundreds to some thousands.

According to historian A. Kruglov, 2,000 Jewish prisoners of war were shot on the way from Yahotyn to Darnitsa in October 1941.

The incomplete list of Yagotin Jews who were shot in 1941 was published by historian Yuriy Dovgoruk, a candidate of historical sciences.
Grigoriy Amlinskiy , born in 1938, a child
Yudko Beliavskiy, born in 1880
Sonia Vaysbland, born in 1865
Mani Galperin, born in 1898
Rachel Galperin, born in 1876, maiden name – Papilov
Yakov Galperin, born in 1909
Mikhail Gorelik, born in 1924, a pupil
Seya Gorelik, born in 1930
Yania Gorelik, born in 1902
Izrail Zayenchik, born in 1926, a schoolboy
Yudit Yoffe, born in 1900
Ionia Kaminski, born in 1927, a pupil
Esther Kaminski, maiden name – Galperin
Moisey Leon, born in 1893
Moshe Leonov, born in 1900
Liza Livshits, born in 1922
Leyba Makhtin, born in 1894
Tsila Makhtin, born in 1925, maiden name – Smolianskaya
Khertsi Moskovich, born in 1893
Maryasia Naydis, born in 1885, maiden name – Zhukovskaya
Moti Poliakov, born in 1908
Tsilia Khanin, born in 1926
Vera Khersonskaya, born in 1922, a pupil
Runia Khersonskaya, born in 1911
Chaya Khersonskaya, born in 1925, a schoolgirl
Avraam Khersonskiy, born in 1925, a schoolboy

In 1942, Klara Gorelik and Roza Rodakova (Rodak) who had been hiding but then was revealed were shot.

We know several cases of Jews saved by the local Ukrainians. Ryta Yosypivna Vaysblat was saved by Liubov Bezsmertna.

Approximately 330 Jews were killed in Yagotin during the Holocaust.

Part of the interview of Holocaust survival Petr Moskovitch who lost his entire family in Yagotyn:

The victims’ nationalities are not specified on the memorials which had been installed in the places of mass shootings.

After the WWII

After the war a few families came back to the town. Those were Lev Alekseyevich and Mina Abramovna Gold, the Malogolovkins (left for Israel), the Libermans;  Sofya,Naum, and Dvoyra Shapiro, Yuriy Tsarik, the Atlases, and the Rabinoviches.

Dmitriy Samoylovich Mekler was the head of Yagotin House of Culture. Mikhail Yoffe was in charge of public catering. His father was a miller.

In the 1990’s, a Jewish community was formed in Yagotin. The majority of its members are the pensioners so their number is constantly decreasing.

In 2016, there were 22 people in the Jewish community. The amount of Halakha Jews among them is unknown.

Famous Jews from Yagotyn

Grigoriy Yakovlevich Tsarik (1909-1974) – a Soviet industry worker, , toolmaker of Kiev factory “Arsenal”, one of the first Stakhanovates in Kiev. There was a time when one of Kiev streets was named after him.

Grigoriy Yakovlevich Tsarik

Eliezer-Shloyme Rabinovich (1864, Yagotin – ?) – a linguist, folklorist

Aron Meyerovich Belikov (1919, Yagotin – 1973) – a Soviet military activist, Major General.

Oleksandr Avramovych Deko ( 1926, Yagotin – 2016, Israel) – a Ukrainian prose writer, translator, expert in literature, essayist, journalist, publisher, and a public figure.  A chief editor of Israeli magazine “Sobornist” (Unity)which was published in the Ukrainian language. He lived in Chernihiv and Kyiv. He has been living and working in Israel since 2004.