Velizh

Jews apparently first settled in Velizh in the mid-18th century. In 1823 a group of local Jews was accused of ritual murder. In 1835 the Jews, who had been declared guilty, were found to be innocent. In 1909 there were two Jewish vocational schools in the town – a government sponsored one for boys and a private one for girls.

Under the Soviets, in the 1920s, Velizh had a Jewish kindergarten, a government sponsored Yiddish school, and a small library with a reading room. By 1939 the number of Jews in Velizh had reached 1,788 or approximately 15 percent of the total population.

The Germans occupied Velizh on July 13 or, according to other sources, on July 15, 1941. About 150 Jewish men were murdered in August or September 1941. Additional groups of Jews, mostly consisting of girls, were also murdered at other times. The Velizh ghetto was established on Zhgutovskaya (today Kurasova) Street on November 7, 1942; it held 1,400-1,500 Jews. The latter were housed in a former pigsty and small buildings around it. The ghetto was liquidated on January 28 (according to other sources on January 29 or 30), 1942 when Red Army forces approached the town. The Germans forced the Jews into the pigsty and set it on fire. More than 1,500 Jewish inhabitants of Velizh were killed on that day. Some of those who managed to escape from the burning pigsty were caught and shot in the area of the Velizhka River several days later.

Velizh was liberated by the Red Army on September 20, 1943.