Koidanovo

KOIDANOVO (or Kaidanovo; from 1935 Dzerzhinsk), town in Minsk district, Belarus. There were 560 Jews paying poll tax in 1765. From 1833 it became a ḥasidic center. The community numbered 2,497 in 1847 and 3,156 in 1897 (67% of the total population); many Jews were occupied in the bristle industry. During World War I the town suffered severely. On July 10–12, 1920 it was set on fire during the retreat of the Polish army and there was general looting of Jewish property. The Jewish population numbered 1,788 in 1926 (32.5% of the total), and 1,314 (15% of the total population) in 1939. In 1924 a Yiddish school was opened and named after the locally born poet Avraham *Reisen. About 150 Jews worked in agriculture. The Germans occupied the town on June 26, 1941, and murdered 1,000 Jews on October 20 or 21, 1941. In March 1942, 1,300 Jews – probably from Minsk – were killed at the local railway station. Jewish partisan units which had joined the general partisan movement were active in forests in the vicinity. The 1959 census contained no data on the Jewish population. The U.S. trade unionist Joseph *Schlossberg was born in Koidanovo.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.