Haradok, Vitebsk Region, Belarus

🇧🇾 Haradok or Gorodok (Гарадок, Horodek) is a town in Vitebsk Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative centre of Haradok District. The district, which is one of the largest in the country. The town is located on the north-east of Belarus and occupies around 3,000 square kilometers. It is situated 30 km away from Vitebsk, the major city of one of the six provinces in the Republic of Belarus.

History Within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Haradok was part of Vitebsk Voivodeship. Haradok was acquired by the Russian Empire in 1772, in the course of the First Partition of Poland.

Holocaust In 1939, 1,584 Jews lived in the town, making up 21.7% of the population.

During World War II, Haradok was under German occupation from 10 July 1941 until 24 December 1943. In the first half of August 1941, between 120 and 200 Jews were shot by the Germans near the village of Berezovka (1.5 km south of the town). Shortly after this shooting, the Germans established a ghetto in a neighborhood in the centre of town. It was fenced on three sides with barbed wire, and the river formed its boundary on the fourth side. Men were sometimes required to perform forced labor.

On October 14, 1941, the Gorodok ghetto was liquidated. Nearly 400 Jews were shot in the forest in the Vorobyevy Hills. They were killed in pits that had been dug in advance. Also, between August and October 1941, there were several small-scale shootings of Jews.