Lypovets’ Jewish Cemetery

Cemetery Information

Country
Ukraine
Region
Vinnytsia
District
Lipovetsky
Settlement
Lypovets'
Site address
The cemetery is located opposite 19, Zelena Street.
GPS coordinates
49.22128, 29.04477
Perimeter length
729 metres
Is the cemetery demolished
no
Type and height of existing fence
The entire perimeter is surrounded with a 1.5 metre tall concrete fence, installed by ESJF in 2019.
Preservation condition
Fenced and protected Jewish cemetery
General site condition
The cemetery is covered with seasonal vegetation but is otherwise well-maintained. However, cattle are allowed to graze on the site. The older section of the cemetery is larger than the new section.
Number of existing gravestones
Approximately 300 tombstones. There are many ruined tombstones on the site. Multiple slabs can be seen toppled on the ground, without legible inscriptions. However, there is a newer section to the cemetery in which the tombstones are kept well-ordered.
Date of oldest tombstone
1900 (the earliest tombstone found by ESJF)
Date of newest tombstone
2002 (the latest tombstone found by ESJF)
Urgency of erecting a fence
Fence is not needed
Land ownership
Property of local community
Preserved construction on site
Drone surveys
Yes

Historical overview

According to IAJGS, and the Commission on the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries, the cemetery was established in 1700.

The lands around Lypovets was inhabited in the ancient era, and the settlement itself was mentioned for the first time under the name Aysin Verkhnij in 1545. From 1569 the region belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1601, Lypovets got its modern name. It attracted new colonists from Volyn, and grew fast. In 1628 it had 1100 households. A Jewish presence in Lypovets was first mentioned in the mid 18th century. The Jewish population of Lypovets suffered greatly from the assaults of the Haidamaks in the late 1760s and many Jews left the area during that period.
In 1793, after the Second partition of Poland, it came under the control of the Russian Empire, and became a part of the Kiev Governorate (Kievskaya Gubernia). In 1847, the Lypovets Jewish community numbered 1802 members. In 1875, in Lypovets there were 802 houses with 6710 inhabitants, consisting of three communities: Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish. It had a synagogue, along with two Orthodox and a Catholic church. In 1896, Lypovets numbered 8968 inhabitants, of which 4128, or 46% of them were Jewish. The jewish community also owned or operated: two flour mills, two tobacco factories, a distillery, a brick factory, two 2-grade schools (for boys and for girls), a city hospital (with 5 doctors), a synagogue and 6 Jewish prayer schools.
In 1897, in Lypovets Jews constituted 4135 of 8658. Most of the Jews in Lypovets were craftsmen or merchants. In 1910, Lypovets had two private Jewish schools, one of them free of charge.
The Jews of Lypovets were hit hard by World War I and the calamities of revolutionary years and civil war in Russia. At least 40 Lypovets Jews lost their lives in pogroms.
After 1922, Lypovets became a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic within the USSR. In the Soviet period many Jews searched for new vocational possibilities. Some of the craftsmen and merchants who were unemployed due to Soviet policy, turned to agriculture. In 1924 a Jewish agricultural commune was established near Lypovets; soon it became a Jewish kolkhoz. In the late 1920s or 1930s two more Jewish kolkhozes were established near Lypovets. In the mid 1920s there was a Jewish council in Lypovets and a Jewish section within the framework of the local trade unions. There were also Yiddish schools in Lypovets.
In the 1920s and 1930s many young Jews left Lypovets for larger towns and cities in search of new educational and vocational opportunities. In 1939 the 1353 Jews of Lypovets comprised 52.6% of the town’s total population. After the German attack against Poland that began on September 1st 1939, a number of Jewish refugees from Poland came to the town.
Lypovets was occupied by German troops on July 23rd 1941. Soon after the start of the occupation, the German authorities imposed various restrictions on the Jewish population of Lypovets: they were forbidden to leave their homes during certain hours and were forced to wear white armbands with blue Stars of David. Already by September 1941 about 200 men and boys had been shot, while the majority of Lypovets Jews, numbering around 1000, were murdered in the course of 1942.
Lypovets was liberated by the Red Army on January 7, 1944.
In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Lypovets became a part of the independent Ukraine. Today there are no Jews.
The Jewish cemetery of Lypovets was established in 1700. Today there are around 300 headstones dating from the entire 20th century. In 2019, it was fenced by ESJF.