Gorodok

Jews began to settle in Gorodok in the 17th century. The Jews of Gorodok suffered greatly during the uprising (1648-1649) of Bogdan Chmelnitsky. In 1897 the Jewish population stood at 3,194 (or 37 percent of the total); however, by 1939 it had declined to 2,329.

The Germans captured Gorodok on July 8, 1941. An open ghetto was set up in one part of the town. The Jews were ordered to wear yellow badges on their clothes. The Jewish community was told to hand over their valuables to the Gebietskommissar (regional commissar) of Yarmolintsy on the promise that thus they would remain alive. In the fall of 1941 Jewish women and children from the nearby town of Kuzmin were taken to the ghetto of Gorodok. The Jews were sent from the ghetto to perform different types of forced labor, for example digging ditches, and were often abused. In the late summer or early autumn of 1942 several members (including Jews) of the underground that operated in the town were arrested, tortured, and publicly hanged by the Germans on the town's square. At the end of October 1942 the majority of the ghetto's inmates were taken to the military area near the Yarmolintsy railway station. There,several days later, after an armed Jewish resistance was surpressed, they were shot to death, along with the Jews from Yarmolintsy, Frampol, Mikhalpol and Satanov. Another 87 Jews, apparently craftsmen and artisans, who had been kept in the ghetto after the first murder operation, were shot to death outside the town in December 1942. In January 1943 16 Jews who had been found hiding were shot to death at the Jewish cemetery.

Gorodok was liberated by the Red Army on March 25, 1944.