Smolevichi

The first mention of Jews in Smolevichi is from 1699. In the 1930s, most of Smolevichi’s Jews worked in agriculture; others in factories and as Soviet employers. A local Jewish council functioned in the town, as well as a Yiddish school, established in 1920. In 1939, the Jewish population in Smolevichi was 1,385 (some 20.5 percent of the total inhabitants).

The Germans occupied the town on June 26, 1941. In response to a partisan operation that blew up three German cars and the bridge over which they were driving, the Germans arrested 118 people (most of them Jews) and shot them. Immediately following the occupation of the town, the Germans established a ghetto, forcing into it the Jews of the town as well as the surrounding areas – some 2,000 people in all. All of Smolevichi’s Jews were murdered in a number of operations carried out by the Germans between July 1941 and October 1942.

The Red Army liberated Smolevichi on July 2, 1944.