Lebedow
Lebedow or Bedouin is a town in the Minsk region of Belarus, where a large Jewish community existed until the Holocaust. The settlement was first mentioned in 1387, and the mound adjacent to the settlement dates back to around 1000 BC. During the 16th century the settlement served as a royal city. After World War I, the town was included in the territory of the Second Polish Republic. 1915-1920 During World War I, and after that, control of the town between Germany, Poland and the Soviet Union changed. 1921-1939 Between the two world wars, the settlement was part of Poland. 1939-1941 At the beginning of World War II, the settlement was annexed by the Soviets. 1941-1944 occupied by the Nazi government. In 1944, after the end of World War II, the settlement was occupied by the Soviet Union until in 1990 independence was declared to the state of Belarus to which the settlement belongs to this day.
Between the wars there were about 900 Jews in the town, close to half its inhabitants, and there was a Zionist activity, including a branch of the He - Chaluts ha - Tsa'ir youth movement, a Hebrew school that belonged to the "Tarbut" network of Zionist Hebrew schools operating in Eastern Europe. This activity was banned with the occupation of the area by the Soviets in September 1939.
At the end of June 1941, during the Barbarossa operation, the town was occupied by the Germans, and within a few days they concentrated the Jewish men there, leading them to a prison camp from which they did not return.
At the end of October 1941, the rest of the town's Jews and the surrounding rural Jews were assembled in a fenced ghetto set up in the community, where 14-year-olds and older were recruited for forced labor, killing 15 ghetto boys in December 1941.
On June 24, 1942, some 650 to 800 ghetto Jews in the town were put into a large barn near the nearby village of Markow, where they were burnt to death. Later, Germans hunted for Jews hiding from the town, killing dozens of them.
From: Wikipedia
Contact us:
Our Facebook
