Shklow is a town in Mogilev 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 ...

, located north of

Mogilev Mogilev (; , ), also transliterated as Mahilyow (, ), is a city in eastern Belarus. It is located on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, about from the Belarus–Russia border, border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from Bryansk Oblast. As of 2024, ...

on the

Dnieper River The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

. It serves as the administrative center of Shklow District. It has a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

on the line between

Orsha Orsha (; , ; ) is a city in Vitebsk Region, Belarus. It is situated on the fork of the Dnieper, Dnieper River and Arshytsa River, and it serves as the administrative center of Orsha District. As of 2025, it has a population of 101,662. History ...

and

. In 2009, its population was 16,439. As of 2024, it has a population of 14,870.

History

* 1535: First records about the town. *1581: * 1654:

Battle of Shklow (1654) The Battle of Szkłów or battle of Shkloŭ or battle of Shklov on August 12, 1654 was one of the first battles of the Russo-Polish War (1654–67); it ended with a indecisive, however, by other sources. A small Polish–Lithuanian force of ab ...

* April 10, 1762: Coat of arms.

Jewish history

Shklov was an important

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

religious center. There was a

yeshiva A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The stu ...

there in the 18th century. Shklov became the center of the

Haskalah The ''Haskalah'' (; literally, "wisdom", "erudition" or "education"), often termed the Jewish Enlightenment, was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, with a certain influence on those in Wester ...

movement. At the end of the 19th century, there were 5542 Jews in the town. During the Soviet times a dozen families worked in the Jewish

kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz. These were the two components of the socialized farm sector that began to eme ...

''Iskra''. In 1939, only 2132 Jews remained in Shklov. The

Germans Germans (, ) are the natives or inhabitants of Germany, or sometimes more broadly any people who are of German descent or native speakers of the German language. The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, constitution of Germany, imple ...

occupied the town on July 12, 1941. The first execution of Jews took place just a few days into the occupation. The Germans shot 25 Jewish men in Lenin Park. At the end of July 1941, two

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 ...

s were established in the neighboring village of (now incorporated in Shklow). In August 1941, the

Einsatzgruppen (, ; also 'task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the imp ...

arrived in the town and gathered 84 Jews under the pretext of sending them to forced labor. In fact, they were taken to the village of Semyonovka and shot. In September 1941, the Jews were taken to a ravine in Khoduly, between the villages of Putniki and Zarechye. They had to undress and lie in the ditch before being shot. According to Soviet sources, 3,200 Jews were killed in Shklow and in the areas around.

Transport

* 1 railway station * 3 bus routes

Notable people

The Jewish family name Shklovsky or Shklover indicates that the person or their ancestors come from Shkloŭ. * Semyon Zorich, Serbian-born Russian General who founded an estate in Shkloŭ (Shklov). * Yitzhak Salkinsohn, born in Shklov * Joshua Zeitlin, rabbinical scholar and philanthropist, born here * Yehoshua Leib Diskin, rabbi in Shklov * Rogatchover Gaon, studied in Shklov under Yehoshua Leib * Pavel Axelrod (1850–1928), Russian

Menshevik The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

revolutionary * Zalman Shneur (1887–1959), Hebrew and Yiddish poet * Baruch Schick of Shklov (1744–1808) rabbi and scholar, Hebrew author and translator * Josef Gusikov,

klezmer Klezmer ( or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these wou ...

musician, born in Shklov * Naum Eitingon, general of the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

and murderer of

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

, born in Shklov * Yisroel ben Shmuel of Shklov, rabbi, disciple of the

Vilna Gaon Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, ( ''Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman''), also known as the Vilna Gaon ( ''Der Vilner Goen''; ; or Elijah of Vilna, or by his Hebrew acronym Gr"a ("Gaon Rabbenu Eliyahu": "Our great teacher Elijah"; Sialiec, April 23, 172 ...

Moshe Feinstein Moshe Feinstein (; Lithuanian pronunciation: ''Moishe Fainshtein''; ; March 3, 1895 – March 23, 1986) was a Russian-born American Orthodox Jewish rabbi, scholar, and ''posek'' (authority on ''halakha''—Jewish law). He has been called ...

, rabbi, studied and lived in Shklov before emigrating to the United States to become the preeminent Torah sage and ''

posek In Jewish law, a ''posek'' ( , pl. ''poskim'', ) is a legal scholar who determines the application of ''halakha'', the Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah, in cases of Jewish law where previous authorities are incon ...

'' of his generation

Gallery

Notes

References

External links

Photos on Radzima.orgSHKLOV in the JewishEncyclopediaThe murder of the Jews of Shkloŭ
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 ...

, at

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

website * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shklou Historic Jewish communities in Belarus Holocaust locations in Belarus Populated places on the Dnieper in Belarus