BRAILOV

BRAILOV, small town in Ukraine. The community numbered 638 in 1765 (living in 190 houses); 2,071 in 1847; and 3,721 in 1897 (43% of the total population). In 1852, all 78 artisans in the town were Jews, and in the 1880s, Jews owned industrial enterprises such as a sugar refinery, brewery, flour mills, and tanneries, employing many Jewish workers. The town had a talmud torah, a school for boys, and one for girls. On the eve of WWI Jews owned all 19 grocery stores, all 16 textile shops,   and the only pharmacy in the town. In 1918–19, during the civil war, about 26 Jews were massacred and around 100 women were raped in pogroms in Brailov, including one perpetrated by the petlyura gangs. The Jews in the town succeeded in warding off one attack. The Jewish population numbered 2,393 in 1926. In the late 1920s, in the Soviet period, Jewish breadwinners were 31% artisans, 21% blue-collar workers, 17% small merchants, 9% clerks, and 21% unemployed (without civil rights). From the mid-1920s, there was a Jewish village council that conducted its proceedings in Yiddish. Brailov was occupied by the Germans on July 17, 1941, and immediately 15 Jews were shot. A ghetto was established and a heavy tribute was imposed on the population. On February 13, 1942, 1,500 Jews were assembled; the sick and those discovered in hiding were shot on the spot. Around 300 artisans were sent back to the ghetto, joined by 200 still in hiding, and the remaining 1,200 Jews were executed. On April 18, 180 Jews, mostly children and elderly persons, were murdered. The last group of 503 (including 286 prisoners from zhmerinka ) was executed on August 25, 1942. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A.D. Rosenthal, Megillat ha-Tevaḥ, 1 (1927), 91–94; Yevrei v S.S.S.R. (19294), 49; B. West (ed.), Be-Ḥevlei Kelayah (1963), 58–60. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: PK Ukrainah, S.V. (Shmuel Spector (2nd ed.)