Kaganovich

Jews began living in Khabnoye no later than the second half of the 18th century. In 1897 Khabnoye's 1,721 Jews constituted 63.3 percent of the town’s total population. Most Khabnoye Jews were small-scale merchants or artisans. The Jews of Khabnoye suffered greatly from the violence that accompanied the years of revolution, the Russian civil war, and the Soviet-Polish war. A number of Jews lost their lives in pogroms carried out by various warring parties, who also looted much Jewish property. The Jewish self-defense unit that was organized in Khabnoye in 1919 was able to provide some protection to the Jews of the town and of the area. The social structure of Khabnoye Jewry underwent great changes during the early Soviet period. In the mid-1920s a Jewish agricultural cooperative was established near Khabnoye. In the 1920s and 1930s there was a four-, later a seven-year Yiddish school in Khabnoye. In 1934 the town was renamed Kaganovich after Lazar Kaganovich, of Jewish origin, one of the most influential Soviet leaders, who was born not far from Khabnoye. In 1939 999 Jews lived in Kaganovich, where they constituted 24.6 percent of the town's total population. Kaganovich was occupied by German troops on August 23, 1941. Apparently about half of the town's Jews succeeded in leaving before the entry of the German troops. Those remaining were shot to death in September 1941 in the vicinity of Kaganovich. Kaganovich was liberated by the Red Army on November 15, 1943. In 1957 the town was renamed Polesskoye. Most of its residents were evacuated after the Chernobyl catastrophe of 1986.