Haradok or Gorodok (, ; ; ) is a town in Vitebsk Region,

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. It serves as the administrative center of Haradok District. Approximately 14,000 people reside in the town itself and around 30,000 people reside within the district, which is one of the largest in the country. The town is located on the north-east of Belarus and occupies around 3,000 square kilometers. It is situated 30 kilometers away from Vitebsk, the major city of one of the six provinces in the Republic of Belarus. As of 2024, it has a population of 11,533.

History

Within the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

, Haradok was part of

Vitebsk Voivodeship Vitebsk Voivodeship (; ; ) was a unit of administrative division and local government in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (from 1569 Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) from the 15th century until the partitions of Poland in 1795. History Zygmunt Gl ...

. Haradok was acquired by the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

in 1772, in the course of the

First Partition of Poland The First Partition of Poland took place in 1772 as the first of three partitions that eventually ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The growth of power in the Russian Empire threatened the Kingdom of Prussia an ...

Holocaust

In 1939, 1,584 Jews lived in the town, making up 21.7% of the population. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Haradok was under

German occupation German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the government of Nazi Germany at ...

from 10 July 1941 until 24 December 1943. In the first half of August 1941, between 120 and 200 Jews were shot by the Germans near the village of Berezovka (1.5 kilometers south of the town). Shortly after this shooting, the Germans established a

ghetto A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...

in a neighborhood in the center of town. It was fenced on three sides with barbed wire, and the river formed its boundary on the fourth side. Men were sometimes required to perform forced labor. On October 14, 1941, the Gorodok ghetto was liquidated. Nearly 400 Jews were shot in the forest in the Vorobyevy Hills. They were killed in pits that had been dug in advance. Also, between August and October 1941, there were several small-scale shootings of Jews.

References

External links

Photos on Radzima.org

Official Haradok site
* Holocaust locations in Belarus {{Belarus-geo-stub