Shklow

Škłoŭ (Belarusian: Шклоў, [ʂkɫɔu̯]; Russian: Шклов, Shklov; Yiddish: שקלאָוו‎, Shklov) is a town in Mahilyow Voblast, Belarus, located 35 kilometres (22 mi) north of Mogilev on the Dnieper river. It has a railway station on the line between Orsha and Mogilev. As of 2009^[update], its population was 16,439.

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 5,542 Jews in the town. Jews living off of trading. A dozen families worked in the Jewish kolkhoz called « Iskra ». In 1939, only 2,132 Jews remained in Shklov. The Germans occupied the town on July 12, 1941.

The first execution of Jews took place a few days after the start of the occupation. The Germans shot 25 Jewish men in Lenin Park. At the end of July 1941, two ghettos were established in the neighboring village of Ryzhkovichi. 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 were shot in the kolkhoz. 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 Shklov and neighborhood.

Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus since 1994, held a position as the director of the construction materials plant in Shklov Raion before he became a collective farm manager and then moved into politics.

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