Raion Lyakhavichy Raion City status 1931 Population 10,997 (2008) | Voblast Brest Voblast Mentioned 1572 Elevation 180 m (590 ft) Local time Wednesday 2:33 PM | |
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Weather 5°C, Wind W at 16 km/h, 82% Humidity | ||
Lyakhavichy (Belarusian: Ляхавічы, [ˈlʲaxavʲitʂɨ], Russian: Ляховичи, Polish: Lachowicze, Yiddish: לעכאוויטש Lekhavitsh) is a city in the southwestern Belarusian voblast (province) of Brest.
Contents
Map of Lyakhavichy 225372, Belarus
History
For many centuries, it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The city's fortress, Liahavichy Castle, survived all sieges during the Russo–Polish War (1654–1667), and was nicknamed the Jasna Góra of Lithuania.
During World War II, Lyakhavichy was under German occupation from 26 June 1941 to 5 July 1944. More than 3,000 Jewish inhabitants lived in the town, swelled by an influx of refugees fleeing from central and western Poland. In November, 1941, Jews were gathered in the central square, then taken and killed in a sand pit near the village of Lotva by an Einsatzgruppe. A new massacre took place in June 1942 when 300 Jews kept prisoners in a ghetto were killed in a place close to the previous one. That day, a revolt in the ghetto took place and several Jews managed to join the partisans.