History

History of the Town

The land where Verkhnedneprovsk is located has been inhabited since ancient times, based on burial mounds from the 2nd or 3rd century BCE. A very small settlement was located here at least as far back as the 17th century and a later settlement named Grigoryevna was founded in 1779. Three years later, the settlement was renamed Novogrigoryevka and intended for the settlement of retired soldiers. On June 5, 1806 it received the status of a district town and was renamed Verkhnedneprovsk (see etymology).

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Excerpts from uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Верхньодніпровськ (translated)

Until the 19th century, the main occupation of the inhabitants was agriculture and cattle breeding . Later, crafts and trade began to develop. Leather processing enterprises , salt-burning enterprises, and a sawmill appeared. In 1858 , the city's population was 2,568 residents, of whom 1,160 were state peasants , 1,219 were burghers , 38 were nobles , 35 were clergy , and 55 were laborers . In 1860, a brick factory , a tobacco factory, a water mill , and a sawmill were operating. The city had 4 streets. The central street, where county institutions, a market, and shops were located, was called Katerynoslavska. Buildings were mainly built of wood, with only one stone house out of 422. After the reform of 1861 in Russia, the development of the city revived. In 1899 , Verkhnyodneprovsk had 29 enterprises (including an alcohol refinery, 2 steam mills , a steam sawmill), as well as 442 craft establishments. Four fairs were held annually . The population according to the 1897 census was 6,700 inhabitants. In January 1899, the Verkhnyodniprovsky Metallurgical Plant began operating , which had a small blast furnace and an iron foundry. However, in October 1899, due to the economic crisis, the blast furnace was shut down." 

On the eve of World War I Verkhnyodneprovsk had 12,640 inhabitants. There were 10 small enterprises and 368 craft establishments. The streets of the city were lit by kerosene lanterns.  

By 1913, the city had 3 primary schools, a women's and men's gymnasium, and two libraries.

In December, 1919 Soviet power was established. 

In 1923, Verkhnedneprovsk became the center of the newly formed Verkhnyodniprovsky District of the Katerynoslave Governate. SInce 1932 it has been part of the Dnipropetrovsk Region.

During the 1930s, industrialization grew. The alcohol refinery was transformed into a research plant for the processing of agricultural waste. The iron foundry and lumber mill were expanded and granite began to be mined on the banks of the Dnieper .

On the eve of World War II, the city had a district hospital, a polyclinic, a sanatorium, and near the city there was a sanitorium.  Educational institutions included 2 secondary, 2 seven-year and 2 primary schools, an agricultural technical school, a school of nurses, a school of combine harvesters, a training complex for training machine operators. Cultural institutions in the city at that time included: a house of culture, an open-air cinema, a library, anda radio station.

On August 21, 1941, Verkhnedniprovsk was occupied by German troops.

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Below is a plan of the town as of 1823. According to https://imperiia.omeka.fas.harvard.edu/document/3132, one of the notes in the legend indicates that there were 487 houses. This would indicate rapid growth in the town since just five years earlier, the population was only 521 (see below).

History of Verkhnedneprovsk's Jewish community 

Jews were not allowed to live in the Russian Empire (with various exceptions) outside of the Pale of Settlement. Much of what is now southern/central Ukraine - originally off-limits to most Jews - was called Novorossiya and had very few occupants until the late 1700s. To encourage settlement and expansion of agricultural activity, Catherine the Great decreed in 1791 that Jews could settle in Novorossiya - which included, among other areas, the land that is now Verkhnedneprovsk.

Population development:

1818: population total 521 (187 military settlers, 101 Cossacks, 67 state peasants). No mention of Jews.

Preliminary figures for Jewish population and % of total population (where available):

• 1847: 265

• 1864: 538

• 1897: 2,058 (30.7%)

• 1910: 4,113 (33.8%)

• 1920: 1,551

• 1923: 1,192

• 1926: 914 (15.5%)

• 1939: 282 (or 119 according to another source) - a minute % of the population total, most of whom were subsequently killed (see Holocaust page).

Other facts

The most common occupation of the Jews of Verkhnedneprovsk in the 19th century was clothing manufacturing. At the turn of the 20th century, most of Verkhnedneprovsk's Jews were tailors or merchants who owned many of the town's shops.

The rabbis in Verkhnedneprovsk were:

• from 1861 - Moses Rubin (1832-?)

• in the 1890s - Simcha Ginzburg

• from 1905 - Leib Heifetz (1844-?)

• in the 1910s - Leiba Girshovich Dotlibov

By 1861, there were three synagogues in Verkhnedneprovsk and a Hevra Kadisha, a Jewish burial society.

In 1905, there was a pogrom in Verkhnedneprovsk during which Jewish property was looted.

In 1907, 15 prayer institutions were officially registered in the district and the city.

In 1909, there was a Talmud Torah and three Jewish schools: two private and one public.

In 1919-1920 there were pogroms in the town. A number of Jews were murdered, including the head of the Jewish community.

From Land of Refuge: Immigration to Palestine, 1919 - 1927 (Gur Alroey, on anti-Jewish violence in Verkhnedneprovsk). Chapter 2, Town on Fire:

... the steamship Vilna approached the [Verkhnedneprovsk] port...At midnight six men boarded the ship and demanded a ransom of 12,000 rubles from the passengers. The passengers collected this sum and gave it to those demanding it. At two a.m about twenty armed men boarded the ship, took all the men off the ship, lowered them to the shore, stripped them of their clothes, and left them only in underpants...They beat the people they were robbing, and when they found gold teeth in their mouths they yanked them out. When they had finished their work with the men, they put the eighteen young Jewish women who were on the ship on shore and raped them all...They carried out this outrage before all our eyes. The abuse and rape continued until noon.