Slutsk

Slutsk Слуцк
Town
Memorial to Princess Anastasia Slutskaya
UTC+3 (MSK)
Postal code	223610
Area code	+375 1795
License plate	5
Website	Official website[dead link]

Slutsk

The city is situated in the south-west of Minsk Region, 26 km (16 mi) north of Salihorsk.

Slutsk was first mentioned in writing in 1116. It was initially part of the

The first Jewish residents arrived by the late 16th century, expanding in population over the following centuries until the town was majority Jewish from the 19th century until World War II.

On 2 October 1967, a riot occurred during which the local court building was set on fire, resulting in the death of a judge and a police officer. The riot, unprecedented in post-WW2 Soviet Belarus, was triggered by the conduct of a murder trial, which was perceived to be unjust by the local residents.[7]

The first indication of Jews in Slutsk is from 1583 when the city was part of Lithuania.^[4] Formal recognition came in 1601. By 1623, Jews owned 16 homes. In 1691, Slutsk became one of the five leading communities of the Lithuanian Jewish Council.^[4] By 1750 there were 1,593 Jewish people, accounting for one third of the population. In economic life, Jewish people were concentrated in commerce; three-fourths of the town's merchants were Jewish, and a similar share of people in the alcohol business were Jewish.^[4] After annexation by Russia in 1793, growth of the city slowed, in part due to it being bypassed by the railroad. By 1897 the Jewish community numbered 10,264 inhabitants, or 77% of the city population.^[4] They played a central role in the cities markets, particularly in agricultural produce.

Slutsk was important in terms of Torah study. Among the rabbinic figures who served there were Yehudah Leib Pohovitser, Chayim ha-Kohen Rapoport,

During the German occupation of Slutsk, the Jewish inhabitants were systematically targeted for killing.[8] The first Jewish victims were killed in the garden on Monakhov Street during the initial days immediately following the arrival of the Germans on 27 June 1941. The victims numbered between 70 and 120, according to different sources.^[9]

Four months later, on 27 and 28 October 1941, one of the largest single massacres occurred, known as the

A further massacre was carried out over several days during the spring of 1942, when the inhabitants of the "field ghetto" of Slutsk were taken to the forest near the village of Bezverkhovichi, 10 km (6.2 mi) west of Slutsk, where they were shot or murdered in gas vans. According to survivors, the victims were driven to the execution site in two to four trucks on Mondays and Saturdays. The last Jews of the field ghetto were murdered on the Passover, 2–3 April 1942. The total number of Jews murdered at Bezverkhovichi is estimated to have been between 3,000 and 4,000.^[12]

One of the last significant massacres of Jews occurred on 8 February 1943, with the liquidation of the "town ghetto" of Slutsk. The Jews were driven in trucks to the former estate of Mokhart, popularly called Mokharty, 5 km (3.1 mi) east of Slutsk, where they were shot from behind in mass graves by personnel of the Minsk security police office. During the liquidation, some Jews fought back, shooting at the German and Latvian soldiers. In response, the Germans burnt the ghetto to the ground. Postwar court proceedings cite a minimum of 1,600 victims, of which 1,200 were murdered at the graves at Mokharty, the rest in the ghetto itself.^[13]

• Isaac Dov Berkowitz – Jewish and Israeli author
• Eliyahu Feinstein – rabbinic authority
• Yerucham Gorelick - rabbinic authority
• Yaakov Yosef Herman – Orthodox Jewish pioneer in America
• Semyon Kosberg – Jewish Soviet engineer
• Shneur Kotler – rosh yeshiva, Lakewood yeshiva
• Boruch Ber Leibowitz – leading rosh yeshiva
• Isser Zalman Meltzer – Rabbi of Slutsk from 1903 to 1923
• Artur Nepokoychitsky (1813–1881) – Imperial Russian military leader
• Anastasiya Prokopenko – world champion and Olympic bronze medalist in modern pentathlon
• Gregory Razran (1901–1973) – Russian American psychologist
• Princess Sophia of Slutsk
  – medieval Eastern Orthodox saint
• Fabijan Šantyr (1887–1920) – Belarusian poet, writer and public figure who is regarded as “the first victim of [the Bolsheviks] in…Belarusian politics and literature”^[14]
• Edward Sperling – Jewish writer and humorist
• Mikola Statkevich – Belarusian politician
• Meyer Waxman – Rabbi and author
• handball
  player
• Lidia Yermoshina – Belarusian politician
• Shaul Yisraeli – religious Zionist rabbi

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (June 2022)

Slutsk is

Former twin towns:

• Tczew, Poland

On 8 March 2022, the Polish city of Tczew ended its partnership with Slutsk as a response to the Belarusian involvement in the

• 
  Slutsk train station
• 
  Slutsk bus depot in the 1920s
• 
  Slutsk Homeland Museum
• 
  Cinema-Theatre "Belarus"
• 
  Commercial college
• 
  Painting of the Slutsk Defence Action
• 
  Slutsk high school
• 
  The high school, "The oldest school in Slutsk"
• 
  Native Belarusian man
• 
  Studying Talmud in Slutsk
• 
  The Slutsk River

• Slutsk Affair
• Slutsk defence action
• Slutsky
• The Holocaust in Byelorussia
• List of cities and towns in Belarus
• Pas kontuszowy
• Słuck Confederation

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Численность населения на 1 января 2025 г. и среднегодовая численность населения за 2024 год по Республике Беларусь в разрезе областей, районов, городов, поселков городского типа". belsat.gov.by. Archived from the original on 29 March 2025. Retrieved 8 May 2025.
2. ^ "World Meteorological Organization Climate Normals for 1991-2020 — Slutsk". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved January 13, 2024.
3. ^ Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Tom X (in Polish). Warszawa. 1889. p. 838.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Adam Teller, "Slutsk," YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, (19 October 2010), accessed 25 January 2015.
5. ^ ^{a b} Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, Tom X (in Polish). Warszawa. 1889. p. 839.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
6. ISBN 978-0-253-06089-1
   .
7. ^ 52 гады таму жыхары Слуцку ўзбунтаваліся, спалілі суд разам з судзьдзёй. Новы паварот справы (52 years ago the residents of Slutsk rioted and set on fire the court building together with a judge. New turn of this case
8. ^ "The Untold Stories - Slutsk". Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
9. ^ "Garden on Monakhov Street in Slutsk". Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
10. ^ "Gorovakha Ravine". Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
11. ^ MacQueen, Michael (2004). "LITHUANIAN COLLABORATION IN THE "FINAL SOLUTION"" (PDF). CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM. p. 5.
12. ^ "Bezverkhovichi (Gas Vans)". Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
13. ^ "Former Mokharty Estate". Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
14. ^ "Фабіян Шантыр: Аўтар "Нашай нівы" і першая ахвяра бальшавіцкага тэрору ў беларускай палітыцы і літаратуры" [Fabijan Šantyr: An author of "Nasha Niva" and the first victim of Bolshevik terror in Belarusian politics and literature].Archived 2021-08-09 at the Wayback Machine baj.by (in Belarusian).
15. ^ "Внешнеэкономическая деятельность". slutsk.minsk-region.by (in Russian). Slutsk. Retrieved 2020-01-14.
16. ^ "Tczew zrywa współpracę z miastami partnerskimi z Rosji i Białorusi" (in Polish). Retrieved 13 March 2022.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Slutsk.

• Home page of the city of Slutsk
• Slutsk, Belarus at JewishGen

Further reading

• J. Krajcar, S.J. (1975). "The last Princes of Sluck and the West". The Journal of Byelorussian Studies. III (3): 269–287. Retrieved 3 June 2024.