Petrovichi

Jews apparently first settled in Petrovichi at the end of the 17th century. In 1897 there were 1,065 Jews living in Petrovichi; they comprised 74 per cent of its total population. Isaac Asimov, a famous American science fiction author, was born in the village in 1920. About 930 Jews lived in Petrovichi in the 1920s. During that period until the mid 1930s there was a synagogue and a Yiddish school in the village, as well as a Yiddish reading room. In 1936 a Jewish kolkhoz named after the Third International was established in Petrovichi.

The town was occupied by the Germans on August 2, 1941. Soon afterwards the Germans set up a Jewish council and a ghetto in Petrovichi. The Jewish population was liquidated in two major murder operations: in May, 1942, about 100-170 Jews were sent to Roslavl and shot there. The remaining Jews were murdered on July 22 (according to other sources on June 2), 1942.

Petrovichi was liberated by the Red Army in September 1943.