Shklow

 ( Historic Jewish Communities In Belarus ) 

Shklow is a town in Mogilev Region, Belarus, located north of Mogilev on the Dnieper. It serves as the administrative center of Shklow District. It has a Train station on the line between Orsha and Mogilev. In 2009, its population was 16,439. As of 2025, it has a population of 14,738.

---

History

• 1535: First records about the town.
• 1581:
• 1654: Battle of Shklow (1654)
• April 10, 1762: Coat of arms.

---

Jewish history Shklov was an important Jewish religious center. There was a yeshiva there in the 18th century. Shklov became the center of the Haskalah 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 Iskra. In 1939, only 2132 Jews remained in Shklov.

The Nazi Germany 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 were established in the neighboring village of (now incorporated in Shklow). In August 1941, the Einsatzgruppen 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
• Joseph Rosen, studied in Shklov under Yehoshua Leib
• Pavel Axelrod (1850–1928), Russian Menshevik revolutionary
• Zalman Shneur (1887–1959), Hebrew and Yiddish poet
• Baruch Schick of Shklov (1744–1808) rabbi and scholar, Hebrew author and translator The Haskalah Movement In Russia – Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 9 August 2007.
• Josef Gusikov, klezmer musician, born in Shklov
• Nahum Eitingon, general of the NKVD and murderer of Leon Trotsky, born in Shklov
• Yisroel ben Shmuel of Shklov, rabbi, disciple of the Vilna Gaon
• Moshe Feinstein, rabbi, studied and lived in Shklov before emigrating to the United States to become the preeminent Torah sage and posek of his generation
  Shimon Finkelman (2025). 9781422610848 . ISBN 9781422610848

---

Gallery

---

See also

• Battle of Holowczyn

---

Notes

---

External links

• Photos on Radzima.org
• SHKLOV in the JewishEncyclopedia
• The murder of the Jews of Shkloŭ during World War II, at Yad Vashem website

Post Comment