Horodno

Horodno was a small village located thirty kilometers from Stolin. During the Chmielnicki Uprising the local non-Jewish population joined the rebels in causing great suffering to Horodno's Jews. In 1897 the village's 562 Jews comprised about 25 percent of the total population. Due to clay reserves found in the vicinity some Horodno Jews, along with the majority of the non-Jewish population, were involved in the production of pottery. Other Jews drove carts or made their living from small-scale trade or artisanship. After World War I the village became part of independent Poland. In 1921 the Jewish population of the village was 583 or about 22 percent of its total population. In the early 20th century there were two local synagogues and branches of several Zoinist parties operated in Horodno. The area came under Soviet rule in 1939. Several days after war broke out on June 22, 1941, the local population made an attempt to stage a pogrom against the Jews of Horodno but it failed. Horodno was occupied by German troops in July 1941. Sometime later, several dozen Jewish men were murdered in the village. Around August 1941 the Jews of Horodno, as well as Jews from nearby villages, were forced into a ghetto. Its inmates were apparently murdered around mid-September 1942. Prior to the shooting, a number of Jews managed to escape from the ghetto to the forests in the vicinity of the village; some of them later joined partisan units or the Red Army. Horodno was liberated by the Red Army on July 12, 1944.