Kostyukovichi

Jews are first mentioned as living in Kostyukovichi in the 18th century. In 1897 there were approximately 2,200 Jews, who constituted 65 percent of the total population. Most of Kostyukovichi's Jews were small-scale traders and artisans. In the 1920s many Kostyukovichi Jews shifted to agriculture, including on an ethnicly mixed kolkhoz, "Parizhskaya Kommuna," located near the town. In the Soviet period there was a Yiddish school in Kostyukovichi. In 1939 1,134 Jews remained in Kostyukovichi, comprising 18.6 percent of the population. Kostyukovichi was occupied by the Germans on August 14, 1941 but many of the town's Jews succeeded in leaving beforehand. A ghetto was soon set up in Kostyukovichi. On September 3 (in October, according to other sources), 1942 local policemen took 380 (or 451, according to another source) Jews of Kostyukovichi to the nearby Kommunary railway station and shot them nearby. Kostyukovichi was liberated by the Red Army on September 28, 1943.