Skidzyel’

Skidzyel’ Скідзель
Flag of Skidzyel’ Flag Official seal of Skidzyel’ Seal
Skidzyel’
Coordinates:
Country	Belarus
Voblast	Grodno Region
Raion	Hrodna district
Population (2009)
• Total	10,869
Time zone	EET (UTC+2)
• Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Postal code	231761
Area code(s)	+375 152
License plate	4

Skidzyel’ (Belarusian: Скідзель, also Скідаль, Skidal’; Polish: Skidel; Russian: Скидель) is a town in the Grodno Region of Belarus located 31 kilometers from Grodno.

History

Skidzyel is sometimes referred to as the former shtetl because 80% of its population was Jewish before the Holocaust. In the course of the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland the village, located in Nowogródek Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic, was the site of a pro-Soviet communist revolt against the Polish government leading to massacre of ethnic Poles by killing squads deployed by delegalized Communist Party of Western Belarus, armed with the smuggled Soviet guns soon before the invasion. The event is referred to by historians as the Skidel revolt.

Holocaust

Small shootings of Jews in the forest close to the city were frequent. The ghetto, were they were kept as prisoners, was liquidated on November 2, 1942. The Jews were taken to nearby Kolbassino (Polish: Kiełbasin) Sammellager transit camp to the south, packed with Jews of the Grodno Ghetto. At this time, they were 22,000 to 28,000 people in the camp. From there, they were sent aboard Holocaust trains to Auschwitz extermination camp.

After World War II, the Grodno headquarters of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was located in Skidal until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

• Points of interest
• Skidel St. Joseph's Catholic Church.JPG

  St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Skidzyel

• Skidel Church of sacred New martyrs and confessors of Belarus.JPG

  Church of New martyrs and Confessors

References

• Marek Wierzbicki, Powstanie skidelskie 1939 r., Białoruskie Zeszyty Historyczne nr 7, Białystok, 1997