Ladyzhinka
Ладижинка (Ukrainian)
Ladyzhinka is a village in Uman district, Cherkassy region. Since 1726 it was a part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1793, it was incorporated into the Russian Empire. In the XIX – early XX centuries, it was a shtetl in Uman uyezd, Kiev gubernia.
Beginning
Jews lived in Ladyzhinka from the XVIII century. In 1795, the Jewish community consisted of 400 people.
In the second half of the XIX century, the village grew into a town, and craftsmen began to settle there, particularly tailors, weavers and blacksmiths, who were mostly Jews. They lived in the center of the town, built houses and shops there and a few wealthy families were tenants. There were also three inns in Ladyzhinka and the owners were Jews. The population consisted of 1,470 Orthodox Christians, 12 Roman Catholics and 825 Jews.
Ladyzhinka entrepreneurs list from Russian Empire Business Directories by 1913
By the end of the XIX century, Jews accounted for 31,5% of the total population (1173 people). The town had two synagogues and a Jewish cemetery.
During the pogroms in 1906, many Jews left Ladyzhinka. In the 1910s, a Jewish savings and loan society operated, Jews owned eight stores, two inns, a restaurant and a pharmacy.
In 2017, one local citizen recalled rich Jewish woman Gesia who used to rent three ponds and owned a mill before the revolution.
There was one large synagogue and perhaps a smaller one in the shtetl. The location of the second synagogue is unknown. The main synagogue was destroyed during the pogroms of 1919. An inn was situated near the main synagogue. It was destroyed after the war.
Pogroms
The pogroms in Ladyzhinka did not differ in severity from those throughout the Uman area and there was looting and attacks on old people, women and children. Particularly brutal was the gang from Semiduby. On May 14, 1919, during the pogrom, 100 Jews were killed. In July 1919, almost all the Jews left Ladyzhinka in search of asylum, most fleeing to Golovanevsk, Uman and Odessa.
1795 ~ 400 Jews
1897 — 1173 (31%)
2017 – 0
In May-June 1919, more than 100 Jews of Ladizhinka were killed by their Ukrainian neighbors.
The biggest pogrom in the shtetl happened on July 12, 1919 during a weekly fair. The horrors of this pogrom are described in Russian below. Peasants cut both arms off of the local rabbi and stabbed him with pitchforks. After the pogrom 69 dead bodies were buried as well as unknown remains of bodies – arms, legs, and heads. The pogrom was organized and carried out by local Ukrainian peasants. Some of the Jews had predicted that there would be a pogrom, and escaped to Golovanevsk before it occuredoccurred. The rest of the Jews escaped to Golovanevsk after it. About 30 Jews remained in the shtetl. They were mostly elderly or suffering from typhoid, with their wives and children who took care of them.
During the pogrom, Jews were driven to a synagogue. They were tortured for several days. The girls were raped. Later, two Jews were killed in the synagogue, five died of diseases, and the rest escaped to nearby villages. There were no Jews left in the village.
More than 1,000 Jews from Ladyzhinka moved to Golovanevsk where a strong self-defense detachment was and there were no pogroms. However, a local community couldn’t help such a huge amount of refugees so many of them died of typhoid and wounds they had got during the pogroms.
Sometimes you can see results of pogroms from the space. The center of the shtetl was empty due to the disappearance of the Jewish community. Jewish houses were dismantled and taken by local Ukrainians. In 1937, a big park was organized in the center.
Between the Wars
In a result of pogroms, only a few families remained in town, among them the Vigdoroviches, who had remained in Ladyzhinka until 1937, and who then moved to Uman.
Site of the synagogue in Ladyzhinka. Now it is a garden of local peasant
In the 1920’s, a Jewish family named Balin from Romania came to the village. The name of the head of the family is unknown, his wife’s name was Reyzia and his daughter’s name was Betia.
In the 1930’s, NKVD (the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) repressed a local Jew who produced vodka.
Sometimes, you can see results of 1919-1921 pogroms from the space…
On this place was Jewish inn…
According to the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia, in 1939, there were 101 Jews (2%) in Ladyzhinka, but as locals recounted, before the war there were no Jews in the town.
Old PreRevolution house in the centre of former shtetl, 2018
Holocaust
In August 1941, the non-local Polizei brought 21 people to Ladyzhinka (it was a group of refugees from the nearby shtetl of Ternovka). Among them were children, the elderly and one 15-year-old member of the Komsomol. They were locked in a house, where they were tortured for a week, and then all the village residents were gathered. The Jews were ordered to dig their own graves. A little girl was holding a book “My Childhood”. All Jews were shot, nobody managed to escape.
The father and the daughter Balin managed to evacuated in 1941. His wife Betia stayed in the village for unknown reasons. Germans didn’t shoot her at once. She wore “Jude” band and worked as a janitor in a commandants’ office. She was killed in 1944, a few days before the liberation of the village. The village was liberated by the Soviet Army on March 10, 1944.
During the construction of the new Kiev-Odessa road in 1970’s, the bones of 21 Ternovka’s refuges were dug up by bulldozers and taken away to an unknown location.
After the WWII
After the war the following Jews came back to the village:
– Yankel Khaimovich Kuperman with his wife and daughter Basia
– Raya (surname is unknown), Yankel Kuperman’s niece.
– Sara (surname is unknown)
– The Popogaylo family with three daughters. One of them was Golda.
Basia Kuperman (1916 – 2012), Taisiya Yakovlevna Kuperman according to her passport, moved to Uman in the 1990’s. She was the last Jew in the village.
In 2017, six pre-revolutionary Jewish houses were still in the center of the village.
The house of Ihil (Ilya) Davidovich Vigdorovich has been preserved. On the wall of the house there is a plaque which mentions his involvement in the military operations.
Soviet soldier Reyzik Borisovich Shoyhed (probably Shoikhet) is buried in a mass grave in the centre of the local park together with another soldiers who were killed during liberation of the village in 1944.
Jewish cemeteries
There were two cemeteries in the village. The one was old near the forest right to Ladyzhinka to Kolodiste road. Now it is a field. There was a small house, and a well. A garbage dump was made there but later it was cleaned.
Remains of another cemetery locate in the village (near the river along Odesskaya St.).
According to the Director of Ladyzhinka museum Andrey Silvestrovich Zaritskiy (died in 2016), there used to be a second (new) Jewish cemetery in the village. In 1938-1939, 13 people from Ladyzhinka were reburied in a Jewish cemetery in Uman.