The village of Orynyn is located in the Kamianets-Podilskyi district of the Khmelnytskyi region, in the historic area of Podillia. Before the Second World War, Jews made up nearly half of the town’s population.
After the Wehrmacht occupied Orynyn, more than 1,700 Jews from the town and surrounding villages were murdered in a single day. Around 300 of the remaining Jews were deported to Kamianets-Podilskyi. A small number of survivors returned after the war, and a small Jewish community remained in Orynyn until the 1990s.
Today, there are two Jewish cemeteries in the town.
The new Jewish cemetery has been in use since the second half of the 19th century. Around 150 tombstones have been preserved there, dating from at least 1870 to 1991.
The old Jewish cemetery has also survived and contains around 10 tombstones. Unfortunately, most of their inscriptions are too damaged to be dated accurately.
The fencing of the new Jewish cemetery in Orynyn was made possible thanks to the financial support of the German Federal Foreign Office.