Drohiczyn

The first reference to Jewish settlement in Drohiczyn relates to 1650. In 1897 the town's 784 Jews comprised 46 percent of the total population. In early October 1882 local residents carried out a pogrom, during which a number of Jews were beaten. In November 1905 a Bund self-defense unit prevented a pogrom by recruits in the tsarist army. During World War I Cossacks and members of the Cherkess rear guard of the Russian army looted Jewish property and, later, set fire to most of the local Jewish houses during their retreat in the fall of 1915. After World War I, when Polish troops entered Drohiczyn, together with troops of Bułak-Bałachowicz, they planned to stage a pogrom in the town, but the Jews averted this by bribing Polish officers. During the interwar period the 1,500 Jews living in Drohiczyn comprised approximately 75 percent of the total town's population. Most of the Jews were artisans or merchants, who mainly sold agricultural produce. The town had a Talmud Torah school, a Hebrew-language Tarbut school, and a branch of the Kultur Lige. The Soviets occupied Drohiczyn on September 25, 1939. Private commerce and artisanship were phased out. The Hebrew-language school was replaced by a Yiddish-language school with a Soviet curriculum. Ten Jewish families and four Jewish individuals from Drohiczyn were arrested and exiled to the Gulag. A small number of Jews left the town with the evacuating Soviet authorities between June 22 and June 25, 1941, when Drohiczyn was occupied by the Germans. The Germans began to conscript the Jews for forced labor and to loot their property. During the second week of the occupation, the Jews were ordered to wear Star of David armbands. Jewish inhabitants from nearby villages were forced to move to Drohiczyn; in response, a local Jewish aid committee was set up to aid the refugees. Several Jews were shot in early July 1941 in the vicinity of the town. In August 1941 an eleven-member Judenrat was appointed and a Jewish Order Service was established. In April 1942 two ghettos were established in Drohiczyn. The fenced-in Ghetto A was designated for skilled workers, who received special certificates, while the rest of the Jewish population was imprisoned in Ghetto B. In late July 1942 about 1,700 Jews from Ghetto B, several hundred Jews from Ghetto A, and Jews from nearby Janów, Horodec and some other locations were transported to the Bronnaya Gora station and shot there. Some small-scale murder operations were carried out in the area of Ghetto A. Three young Jewish men were hanged shortly after the liquidation of Ghetto B. In mid-September 1942 sixteen Jews were shot in Ghetto A. The final annihilation of the inmates of Ghetto A was carried out in mid-October 1942 in the vicinity of the Drohiczyn train station. Shortly before this operation, several Jewish doctors who worked at a clinic for Jewish forced laborers refused German orders to attend the executions and committed suicide. Most of the Jews in hiding were found and murdered. A few escapees managed to join Soviet partisan units. Drohiczyn was liberated by the Red Army on July 17, 1944.