Piryatin

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PIRYATIN

PIRYATIN , city in Poltava district, Ukraine. A Jewish settlement in Piryatin was first mentioned in 1630. The community was destroyed in the massacres of 1648 and not revived until the close of the 18th century, when it became a center for *Chabad Ḥasidism. The community numbered 464 in 1847 and grew to 3,166 (39% of the total population) in 1897. Apart from ḥadarim there was a Jewish school with separate classes for boys and girls. By 1926 the Jews numbered 3,885 (31.8%), dropping by 1939 to 1,747 (12.7% of the total population). About 100 families worked in a Jewish kolkhoz founded in 1929. The Germans entered Piryatin on September 18, 1941. On April 6, 1942 they murdered 1,600 Jews, and later another 1,400 from the environs, and refugees.

[Yehuda Slutsky]