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Skidzyel or Skidel is a town in Grodno District, Grodno 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 is located east from
Grodno Grodno, or Hrodna, is a city in western Belarus. It is one of the oldest cities in Belarus. The city is located on the Neman, Neman River, from Minsk, about from the Belarus–Poland border, border with Poland, and from the Belarus–Lithua ...
. As of 2025, it has a population of 9,667.


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, ...
, Skidzyel’ was part of
Trakai Voivodeship Trakai Voivodeship, Trakai Palatinate, or Troki Voivodeship (, , ), was a unit of administrative division and local government in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from 1413 until 1795. History Trakai Voivodeship together with Vilnius Voivodeship wa ...
. In 1795, the town 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 ...
as a result of the
Third Partition of Poland The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polis ...
. From 1921 until 1939, Skidzyel’ was part of the Białystok Voivodeship in the
Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...
. In the
1921 Polish census The Polish census of 1921 or First General Census in Poland () was the first census in the Second Polish Republic, performed on September 30, 1921, by the Main Bureau of Statistics ( Główny Urząd Statystyczny). It was followed by the Polish ce ...
, 68.7% people declared Jewish nationality, 17.3% people declared Polish nationality, and 12.3% declared Belarusian nationality. Skidziel is sometimes referred to as a former
shtetl or ( ; , ; Grammatical number#Overview, pl. ''shtetelekh'') is a Yiddish term for small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish populations which Eastern European Jewry, existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The t ...
. On 18 September 1939, in the course of the
Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...
, Skidzyel’ was the site of a pro-Soviet
communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
revolt against the Polish government leading to massacre of ethnic Poles by killing squads deployed by delegalized Communist Party of Western Belarus, armed with the smuggled Soviet guns soon before the invasion. The event is referred to by historians as the
Skidel revolt The Skidel Revolt (, ) or Skidal Uprising (term used in Soviet historiography) was an anti-state and Anti-Polish sentiment, anti-Polish sabotage action done by Jews, Jewish and Belarusians, Belarusian inhabitants of the Second Polish Republic, P ...
.
Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecutio ...
.
On 19 September, a unit of the Polish Army restored Polish control in Skidzyel’, but the next day, 20 September, the town was occupied by the Red Army and, on 14 November 1939, incorporated into the
Byelorussian SSR The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, Byelorussian SSR or Byelorussia; ; ), also known as Soviet Belarus or simply Belarus, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922 as an independent state, and ...
. From 27 June 1941 until 14 July 1944, Skidzyel’ was occupied by Nazi Germany and administered as a part of
Bezirk Bialystok Bialystok District (German language, German: ''Bezirk Bialystok'') was an administrative unit of Nazi Germany created during the World War II invasion of the Soviet Union. It was to the south-east of East Prussia, in present-day northeastern Pola ...
. Small shootings of Jews in the forest close to the city were frequent. The ghetto, where they were kept as prisoners, was liquidated on November 2, 1942. The Jews were taken to nearby Kolbassino () ''Sammellager'' transit camp to the south, packed with Jews of the
Grodno Ghetto The Grodno Ghetto (, , ) was a Nazi ghetto established in November 1941 by Nazi Germany in the German-occupied Poland city of Grodno for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of Jews in Western Belarus. The ghetto, run by the SS, consi ...
. At this time, they were 22,000 to 28,000 people in the camp. From there, they were sent aboard
Holocaust trains Holocaust trains were railway transports run by the ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'' and other European railways under the control of Nazi Germany and its allies, for the purpose of forcible deportation of the Jews, as well as other victims of the Holo ...
to
Auschwitz extermination camp Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...
.Skidel-Grodno at Yahadmap.org
/ref> After World War II, the Grodno headquarters of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...
was located in Skidal until the collapse of the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
in 1991.


Gallery

File:Skidel_St._Joseph's_Catholic_Church.JPG, St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Skidzyel File:Skidel Church of sacred New martyrs and confessors of Belarus.JPG, Church of New martyrs and Confessors


Notes


References


Sources

*Marek Wierzbicki, , Białoruskie Zeszyty Historyczne nr 7, Białystok, 1997 {{DEFAULTSORT:Skidziel Populated places in Belarus Populated places in Grodno region Holocaust locations in Belarus Grodno district