Pochep

Jews began to settle in Pochep in the 17th century and between 1791 and 1917 the town was part of the Pale of Settlement. Periodically the Jewish community of Pochep experienced anti-Jewish violance. In 1648 most of the Pochep Jews were murdered by the troops of Chmielnitsky; later Jews of town sufferred from the pogroms of 1905 and from attacks and looting on the part of the various sides involved in the Russian Civil War (1918-1920). In the 1920s most Pochep Jews were merchants or craftsmen, while some Jewish family engaged in agriculture. A Jewish kolkhoz called Emes was established in the town. Pochep had a Yiddish school. The famous Soviet composer of Jewish origin, Matvey Blanter, the author of the song "Katyusha", was born in Pochep. In 1939 2,314 Jews lived in Pochep, comprising 14.9 percent of the total population. In 1939 refugees from Nazi-occupied Poland augmented the original population of Pochep. The Germans occupied Pochep on August 22, 1941. Only a few Jews succeeded in escaping from the town. In November 1941 the Jews of Pochep were forced into two ghettos, each surrounded by barbed wire: one for men and the other for women and children. The conditions in the ghettos were appalling and the mortality rates high. On March 15-16 (March 16-17, according to another source) 1942 about 1,800 inmates from the ghettos were shot to death by the Germans and their local accomplices. The Red Army liberated Pochep on September 21, 1943.