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Žałudok / Zaludok / ZheludokTowns map

Alternate names: Zheludok [Rus Желудок and Желудек, Yid זשעלודאָק], Żołudek [Pol], Žałudok and Жалудок [Bel], Žaludkas [Lith], Żełudok, Zholudok, Zhaludok, Zheludek, Zoludek. 53°36' N, 24°59' E, 23 miles SSW of Lida, 35 miles W of Navahrudak (Nowogródek). Jewish Population: 1,372 (in 1897), 1,053 (in 1921). Pronounced "Je-law-duk

and the dependent villages of Bogdanowce, Bojary Chocianowskie, Bojary Dzikuskie, Chodorowce, Bojary Lebiodzkie, Bojary Zoludzkie, Brzozowka, Cegielnia, Chodorowce, Dabrowa/Domberowo, Dubiele, Dzikuszki, Chocianowce, Hrycowo, Karpiejki, Koniuszny, Krasula, Kukinie I and II, Kupry/Kofri, Lohwiny, Minontowicze, Nowosiolki, Ogrodniki, Olhowce, Oszmiance, Papierowce, Plantowka, Sierki, Siolo Male, Siolo Wielki, Skiersie/Skiarsiah Valchki, Sobaczki, Szawdzinie, Wolkowiscze, Zablocie, Zabrojowce

and the estates, colonies, and hamlets of Bakszty, Bielewszczyzna, Bogdanowce, Borciaki, Bucily, Budzilowszczyzna, Chmielewszczyzna, Chodorowce, Chlusy, Dabrowa, Dziekunek, Dzikuszki, Farny Koniec/Farny Konets at 53º37 24º58 , Hermancin, Horodyszcze, Koniuszany, Kormialov, Kozince, Krasula, Kurhan, Lapiszki, Lebiodka, Lipniki, Papierowce, Peshchulna, Plantowka, Pozniaki, Sawowszczyzna, Stanislawowo, Stoklishki, Strzelica, Subacze, Widygorowszczyzna, Zaleskowszczyzna, Zalniuki/Zanyuki and the Smallholding of Zoludek

HISTORY

1993 town population: 1,800 with no Jews. This small town in Scucyn region, 22 km SE of Scucyn, 7 km from the railway station at Skribovtsy and on the banks of the river, Zoludchanka, named for the many oak trees that flourished on its banks and dropped their fruit. These acorns are called "zholod" in Russian. In the days of the Polish Kings, they privately owned Zholudok; and the town was a provincial capital, a "Starosta" settlement. King Casimir Yagilonchik (Jagiello) built the Cathedral in 1480. The Cathedral burnt down in 1506 during the Tartar Invasion and was rebuilt in 1529 by King Zigismunt (Sigismunt) I. In 1535, two Russian nobles fled from Moscow to Poland and the anger Czar Ivan the Terrible: Simon Beilski and Ivan Latzki. Zigismund the Elder, whose patronage they sought, granted them land. Ivan Latzki received Zholudok. Eventually, the town passed to the ownership of the Sapiah family, and later to the Rodziman-Franzkeievich family. In 1682, Kazimir and Alexandra Frantskevich established a Catholic church. In February 1706, Swedish King Karl XII had an estate in Zheludok. At the beginning of the 18th century, Zholudok passed to the ownership of the Tinzhaus (Tinzhoys) family, one of whom was the archeologist -scientist K. Tezengauz, born in Zheludok in 1786 and buried in the Catholic churchyard . From the Tinzhauses, it passed at the 1795 Partition of Poland to the Russian Oruski family. Its population was then 650 tax paying souls, of whom 287 households were Jewish. It was a volostj center in Lida povet, Vilna guberniya. In the eighteenth century, a hospital and a school existed. In 1848, on the Zoludchanka River near the right bank of the Neman River in Lida uezd on the road from Grodno to Novogrodek, 10 viorsts from the post office in the town of Peshchulna and 42 viorsts SW of Lida and 130 viorsts from Vilna had 130 houses and 674 residents. A Jewish synagogue, a Jewish house of prayer, two water powered flour mills, a whiskey distillery, a beer brewery, twenty-three stores, a weekly Sunday market, and an annual fair on the feast day of the Holy Ghost (Pentecost Sunday, seven weeks after Easter) were part of the town. The 1849 Jewish population was 247 and in 1898, 1,372 out of a total population of 1,860. In 1897 the population was 1,860 in the town with a technical college, a Catholic cathedral, three synagogues, two mills, a leather workshop, a beer production factory, more than twenty shops, and ten taverns and Sunday markets.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the 1,969 residents lived in the town belonging to Svyatopolk-Chetvertinski uezd. In 1903 the rabbi was Eliahu Moshe Levin, who died, then Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz. Zaludok is the birthplace of Ben Avidor (Abraham Leib Shalkovich (1867-1921). In 1915, Germany occupied it. In 1919-1920, the Polish Army occupied it. Beginning 1921, Zaludok belonged to Poland as a miasteczko (small town) and gmina wiejska (parish village and center), seat of the council office, in second uchastok, Lida powiat, Novogrudok voevodstvo. The Justice of the Peace was in Lida and the Justice Court in Wilno. The 1928 population was 552. The railroad was eleven kilometers away in Skrzybowce. The Justice of the Peace was in Lida and the Justice Court in Wilno with the railway in 11 kilometers away in Skrzybowce. The post office, telephone, and telegraph were in Zholodek as were one Catholic church, a hospital, distilleries, tanneries and mills. In September 1939, the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic took control. Beginning January 15, 1940, Zaludok was designated as a small town and a district center. During World War II, it was occupied by German troops and destroyed. The Red Army liberated Zaludok on July 12, 1944. Since April 17 1962, Zaludok belonged to Scucyn district. In 1971, with a population of 2,100, Zaludok had a bakery, a shoe factory called "Neman", a post office, a secondary school, a kindergarten, a medical profession training college, a cinema, a House of Culture, and a hospital. One km to the west is an architectural monument, a residential palace, dating back to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. An archeological monument of the "Selische" settlement may be found on the bank of the river Zhaludyanka.

There is a grave of partisans who were killed during World War II.

Of particular Jewish interest: About 280 Jewish families lived in Zaludok beginning in the first half of the nineteenth century. By 1800, the Jewish population was 1,370 out of 1,900. The town contained a synagogue, a prayer house, a cheder and Talmud Torah. Rabbis of the town included Rabbi Chaim Rutenberg-Mischkovsky, Zadik, who officiated from 1865 to 1880. He was the presiding judge. Gaon rabbi Eliahu Moshe Levin (who edited "Yad Eliahu: Question and Answers in Halacha") succeeded. In 1903, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz became rabbi. He left to become the Rabbi of Moscow. From 1913 to 1933, Rabbi Zvi Arieh Lurie was Zaludok's rabbi. His son-in-law, Rabbi Elkhanon Sorotzkin (ben Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin) was the last rabbi of Zaludok. The Soviets imprisoned him and exiled him to Siberia. He emigrated to Israel following WWII. In 1920 a Hebrew School opened in Zaludok that became part of the Tarbut system in 1930. The school's Zionist curriculum included Hebrew and Judaism as subjects. A Yiddish Central Jewish School Organization (Z.I.S.O) organized about 1930. The Jewish community maintained these schools because the Polish government did not support separate religious schools for Jews. The Soviets abolished these schools in 1939. Hehalutz and Hehalutz Hazair were active in Zaludok beginning in 1922 and 1925 respectively. Haliga Lemaan Eretz Israel Haovedet collected for Keren Kayement and Keren Hayessod. Commercially, Zaludok Jewish residents were merchants, shop-keepers, and craftsman. Their grain trade, purchased from local peasants, was shipped to Germany. Becoming part of the National Railway Network in 1930, Zaludok shipped grain by train. An unstable economy in Zaludok resulted from repeated border changes. Rabbi Shmuel Levin directed the Jewish People's Bank. Ben Avigdor [Abraham Leib Shelkovitz], a writer, and Pinchas Kremien were from Zaludok. Kremien was a painter of the Paris School of Art and member of the Academy of Arts in France. In 1939, the Jewish population total was about 2,200 or 90% of the population. The German army occupied Zaludok on 27 June 1941. They set fire to the town, destroying almost every Jewish home. The Jews wore yellow stars and paid ransoms. In July 1941, twenty-two young Jewish males were killed for not wearing the star. On 1 November, 1941, the Jews of Zaludok were rounded up from the ghetto on Orlowa Street, the only street surviving the June fire. About 300 Jews from nearby Orlova, where Jews lived since the beginning of the eighteenth century, also were taken to Orlowa Street. In the winter of
1941/42, Polish policemen helped the Germans murder Jews of both towns. One day, it was thirty-two Jews from Orlova. On another day, twenty-eight Jews of Zaludok were killed. About 1 May 1942, 140 young Jews were sent to the labor camp Skribowo and later to the Lida Ghetto. A few managed to escape and join Russian partisan groups including that of Tuviah Bielski. Shlomo Shifmanowitz of Zaludok specifically is mentioned in Soviet dispatches. About thirty of these men survived including Baruch Levin, nominated as "Hero of the Soviet Union" before his emigration to Israel. Finally, on the morning of 8 May 1942, German soldiers and Ukrainian and Police policemen surrounded the ghetto, driving the Jews from their homes to the market place for a "selection" by two SS officers: Leopold Windisch and Rudolf Werner. (These two were sentenced to life imprisonment following the war.) Eighty-one craftsmen were selected and sent to the synagogue, then transferred to the
Scucyn Ghetto. The remaining people, more than 1,500, were killed and buried in a mass grave. Polish policemen caught and killed those in hiding. The remaining craftsmen from the selection went from the Scucyn Ghetto in September 1943 to an extermination camp.
Holocaust memorial photo

LOCATION AFTER 1939 Baranavichy Oblast (Belarusian: Баранавіцкая вобласць, Russian: Барановичская Область) was a territorial unit in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic created after the annexation of West Belarus into the BSSR in November 1939. The administrative centre of the province was the city of Baranavichy. The voblast was originally known as the Navahrudak Voblast but it was soon renamed to Baranavichy Voblast. The oblast was made up of 26 raions in 1944. These raions were Byten, Gorodyshche, Ivyanets, Iwye, Yuratishki, Karelichy, Kletsk, Kozlovshchina, Lyakhavichy, Lida, Lubcha, Mir, Masty, Navahrudak, Nova Mysh, Nesvizh, Radun, Slonim, Stowbtsy, Shchuchyn, Vasilishki, Valozhyn, Voranava, Dzyatlava, Zel’va and Zheludok. In 1944, the oblast was diminished after transferring raions of Lida, Radun, Schuchyn, Vasilishki, Voranava, Masty, Zel’va and Zheludok to newly founded Hrodna Voblastones of Iwye, Yuratishki and Valozhyn to Molodechno Voblast in 1944. Finally on January 8, 1954 the oblast was liquidated and the raions were divided between the Brest (Raions of Gorodyshche, Lyakhavichy and Novo Mysh), Grodno (Byten, Karelichi, Kozlovshchina, Lubcha, Mir, Navahrudak and Slonim), Molodechno (liquidated in 1960) (Raion of Ivyanets) and Minsk (Raions of Kletsk, Nesvizh and Stowbtsy) Olbasts (Modern Brest Voblast, Hrodna Voblast and Minsk Voblast). Thus, Baranavichy became part of Brest one as raion center after Nova Mysh one's center was moved to Baranavichy in 1 May 1954 and renaming it as Baranavichy one after 8 April 1957

Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego (1880-1902), XIV, pp. 827-828: "Żołudek".:


Formerly Zeludok, town on the river Zoludczanka near the bank of the Niemen, Lida district, in the 3rd police precinct, gmina and rural district of Żaludok, at 53°36’N 42°38’E, near the greater road from Grodno to Nowogrodek, 10 wiorsts (approx. 10 km) from the Iszczolna post office, 13 w. from the village Pieskowce (Niemen), 42 w. southwest of Lida, and 130w from Wilno.

The gmina belongs to the 2nd peace district of peasant affairs, encompassing from the 3rd district (Żołudek, Krasula, and Dabrowo) comprising 26 localities, having 328 houses, 3,762 peasant residents (1,427 male serfs) enfranchised/granted land of 7,755 dziesiatun [1 = 1.09 hectares = 2.9 acres] (4,737 fields?) [approx. 22,589 acres]. Also within the gmina boundaries are 4,090 dz. [11,861 acres] of greater quality. The whole gmina area has 11,878 dzies. [34,446 acres] (6,329 fields) and 4,698 inhabitants. … The Niemen [river] divides the parish in two parts, the larger of which lies to the right of the river.

In this parish on the Niemen, replete with enormous forests and big game like roe-deer, wild boar, and elk. Occasionally beavers (by the Niemen) and bear are encountered. According to data from 1817, the terrain of the parish is a little hilly, with vast forests near the Niemen, much pasture land, and soil of sand, gravel, and clay/loam. Rivers: Niemen, Szczara, Lebiodka, and Zoludczanka.

At one time there were a royal estate and unenclosed county offices. The Lithuanian Metryka offer these starostas [sheriffs] of Żołudek: Marcin Chreptowicz (1501-08), Michal Pacewicz (1510), and Prince Wasil Polubinski (1516-33).

[Grand Duke of Lithuania] Kazimierz Jagiellonczyk founded this place, and between 1480 and 1490 endowed a parish church. In one of the Tartar invasions, very likely in the year 1506, this church burned down and the right to endowment disappeared. In 1529 on the Saturday before St. George's Day, Zygmunt I, wanting to restore the former church bequest in the royal town of Żołudek, revealed through a commissioned messenger, that he confirmed and generated new ones. [Acts of the Diocese of Wilno, book 2, page 157]

In 1535, at the clemency of the king, [two] deserters from Moscow, Prince Siemion Bielski and senior counselor Iwan Lacki, came to Lithuania. On the first of them, Zygmunt the Elder, conferred Zyzmory, Stokliszki, and Kormialy; on the second, Wysoki Dwor and Żołudek.

At a later time, Żołudek went into the Sapieha’s possession, very likely in compensation for numerous sacrifices of property given up for the Republic. From the Sapiehas, Żołudek passed as dowry for Anna Sapiehowa to the home of Radziminski-Frackiewicz h. Brodzic, from whom more or less in the year 1680 Kazimierz, [Lithuanian] court treasurer, with the authorization of the Republic, acquired the collatorship of the local church. [Acts of the Diocese of Wilno, book 4, page 1652]

This Kazimierz Frackiewicz together with his wife Aleksandra née Komar (according to another source, Anna Naruszewicz) in the year 1682 founded in Żołudek " from new roots" a church and an old-rule Carmelite class cloister, which remains here still in the current century. A resolution of the Warsaw sejm in 1685 approved its endowment.

In 1702, Krzystof Kiezgajllo Zawisza, governor of Minsk, was exasperated with Jan Kazimierz Kaczanowski h. Ostoja, [who was] indeed of good nobility and at that time starosta/sheriff of Dowgielliszki, but from the secondary/subordinate class, for this [reason], that he married Maryanna Tekla Naruszewicz, widow of Peter Michal Pac, a half-sister of Teresa Tyszkiewicz (wife of Governor Zawisze); on Three Kings Day [January 6] attacked Kaczanowski at his small estate of Mozejkowi, putting him to flight and chasing him as far as Żołudek.

"There Pan Kaczanowski in the company of two other persons took refuge/or was sheltered in the church vault, from which not by force but rather stooped over in fear, he was led out from that very place, on the following day at last better prepared for death, and was executed. Such an ending was married from high rank." (Pamietniki Zawisze, p. 104)

Because of this outrage, the burial of Kaczanowski in the Orthodox church in Wiazowce was closed to the Żołudek church. (Zlota Ksiega III, 156-7)

Skirmishing in Litwa in 1706 with Russian forces and Polish detachments, siding with August II, Charles XII had here over a long time (from 10 February) chiefly winter quarters, and stood in the Carmelite monastery. From there he went to inspect the bridge built on the Niemen below the village of Orla, and one time (8 March) almost perished in consequence of the ice breaking up. The next morning he advised the deputy of the city of Wilno of these experiences.

In the 18th century, Żołudek became the property of Tyzenhaus, who decorated his manor with beautiful gardens. In the church here in 1785 rested the body of Antoni Tyzenhaus, Lithuanian court treasurer, one of the most remarkable ministers of the country. Here later in 1786 the famous ornithologist Count Konstanty Tyzenhaus was born. From Tyzenhaus, Żołudek went by dowry to Uruski. - J. Krz. - M. Witan

ZALUDOK PICTURES

SOURCES
  • A family story, donated by Jean Perkin.Obituary of Ben Avigdor, from The Jewish Chronicle, London. Donated by Robert CraigOutline of the course of the 1942 mass executions in Zaludok, from records at the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archive
  • Holocaust in Zaludok and Orlya on the Yahad in Unum site.
  • Famous Sons:
    • author Ben Avigdor was born in Zaludok
    • Zionist leader Nahum Goldmann, Ben Avigdor's nephew.
    • artist Pinchus Kremegne (1890-1981) was born in Zaludok. There are ephemeral art dealer links to paintings at auction - search his name
    • Polly Rockberger is a British artist with family roots in Zaludok with some work inspired by her family history.
  • LitvakSIG JewishGen Belarus SIG Sefer Zoludek ve-Orlowa; galed le-zikaron (Tel Aviv, 1967) YIZKORSłownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego (1880-1902), XIV, pp. 827-828: "Żołudek". Shtetl Finder (1980), p. 126: "Zheludok". "Żołudek"Encyclopedia of Jewish Life (2001), p. 1518: "Zoludek".· The Holocaust in Belarus: Zheludok by Leonid Smilovitsky. Zheludok, originally on pp 203. translation donated by Peter DuffZaludok Businesses listed in the 1925 Polish Business DirectoryKsiega Adresowa Handlowa, Warszawa Bydgoszcz 1929, 19261923/Glowny Urzad Statystyczny Rzechzypospolitej polskiej
  • Sachenka B. I [editor], Encyclopedia of the History of Belarus. Volume 3, Minsk: 1996, p. 363;
  • Kagan Sefer Haprenumerantn 3297; 1903 rabbi was Eliahu Moshe Levin who died then Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz; birthplace of Ben Avidor (Abraham Leib Shalkovich (1867-1921)
  • EVREISKAYA ENCY.: VII: 537 [7 lines]. Yad Vashem: 0.3 7431 94058, Russian, 11 May 1994, GLEMBOTZKY, Vladimir, born in OSTRYNA in 1926: Testimony from 1939-1941, Jews of OSTRYNA under Soviet rule; changes in the condition of the Jews, imprisonments, expulsion to work camps in Russia, liquidation of businesses, different cooperatives of experts; refugees from Poland in OSTRYNA and Grodno and their expulsion to Russia; June, 1941, bombing of Grodno; founding of local police; relations between Poles and Jews; end of July 1941, founding of the OSTRYNA ghetto; March 1942, the passage of NOWY DVOR Jews to Ostryna; relations between Jew of SHUCHIN, ASIHSHOUK and DJOLODOK [note: Szczuczyn, Eisiskes, and Zaludok] in the beginning of 1942; murder of 7 Jews in the Ostryna ghetto; Orthodox Jews contributions; end of October 1942, expulsion of Ostryna Jews to transit camp Kielbsin; conditions of life, mass murders, hunger and epidemics, dwellings in underground structures that were next to populations of Soviet prisoners; passage of Ostryna, Nowy Dvor Jews to train station in Lusosna and from there to Auschwitz and the selection there; the passage to Monowice, tattooing
  • Yad Vashem: TR.10-646 68650, German, 15 Dec 1966, written accusation against Leopold Windich and Rudof Werner in the synagogue in Mainz; description of pursuit of Jews in the LIDA area; establishment of ghettos in the cities and expulsion of the Jews from the towns into the ghettos; description of 3 ghettos in LIDA city and the projects in them in which Jews worked; review of the Judenrat; forced labor; description of "Actions" in SZCZUCZN, ZOLUDEK, WASILISHKI at beginning of 1942; murder of 300 Jews in VORONOVO in Nov 1941; description of murder of Jews in the LIDA area in the fall of 1941 and winter of 1941-42; murder of 86 prisoners in LIDA city in the winter of 1942; "actions" in 1942 in the LIDA region; in LIDA city August 1942; in ZALOUDEK 5 Jan 1942; in WASILISZKI 10 May 1942; in WORONOW 19 May 1942; in IWJE 12 May 1942; notes on the number of Jews that were murdered by him. The files also accuse the occupied governments of LIDA city and their leaders Dienst, Stellen of Himmler in the occupied eastern territories.
  • Pinkas HaKehilot, Poland, Vol. 8 (2005), pp. 344-346
  • Kagan Haprenumerantn 2649; 1885: Hamelitz lists donors to aid fire victims in Grodno: Yomtov Divanitzki Lillel Peisachov Michal Zilberman and Chanokh Zilberman
  • Documentary Sources on Jewish History in the Archives of the CIS and the Baltic States: Preliminary List of collections, Compiled by Dmitri A. Elyashevich, Acropolis, St. Petersburg: 1994, St. Peterburg Jewish University, Diaspora Research Institute, Russian State University for the Humanities, Historical Archival Institute, Center for Archival research. Grodno (Belarus), Belorussian Historical Archive in Grodno
  • Yad Vashem: TR.10-646 68650, German, 15 Dec 1966, written accusation against Leopold Windich and Rudof Werner in the synagogue in Mainz; description of pursuit of Jews in the LIDA area; establishment of ghettos in the cities and expulsion of the Jews from the towns into the ghettos; description of 3 ghettos in LIDA city and the projects in them in which Jews worked; review of the Judenrat; forced labor; description of "Actions" in SZCZUCZN, ZALUDOK, WASILISHKI at beginning of 1942; murder of 300 Jews in VORONOVO in Nov 1941; description of murder of Jews in the LIDA area in the fall of 1941 and winter of 1941-42; murder of 86 prisoners in LIDA city in the winter of 1942; "actions" in 1942 in the LIDA region; in LIDA city August 1942; in ZALOUDEK 5 Jan 1942; in WASILISZKI 10 May 1942; in WORONOW 19 May 1942; in IWJE 12 May 1942; notes on the number of Jews that were murdered by him. The files also accuse the occupied governments of LIDA city and their leaders Dienst, Stellen of Himmler in the occupied eastern territories.
  • Shtetl Finder (1980), p. 126: "Zheludok".
  • Pinkas HaKehilot, Poland, Vol. 8 (2005), pp. 344-346: "Żołudek".
  • Encyclopedia of Jewish Life (2001), p. 1518: "Zoludek".
  • Barbara Proko's translation of the Slownik Geograficzny entry.
  • 1929 Polish Business Directory, names reflect Polish spelling
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Lida District genealogical records translation is a joint effort of Lida District Researchers of Belarus SIG and Lida District Research Group (DRG) of LitvakSIG. Record translations cover all shtetls (towns) in the Lida Uyezd (district) of Vilnius Guberniya (region) of Lithuania including the town of Lida itself. This page is hosted at no cost to the public by JewishGen, Inc., a non-profit corporation. If useful or if you are moved by this effort to preserve the memory of our lost communities, your JewishGen-erosity will be appreciated.