KLICHEV
[End Page 1681] Pre-1941: Klichev, town and raion center, Mogilev oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Klitschew, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Klichau, raen center, Mahiliou voblasts’, Republic of Belarus
Klichev is located about 75 kilometers (47 miles) southwest of Mogilev. According to the 1939 Soviet census, there were 433 Jews living in Klichev.
German forces of Army Group Center captured the area around Klichev in early July 1941. Some Jews managed to escape in time to the interior of the Soviet Union. According to some sources, the Germans established a ghetto in Klichev in the second half of 1941, which may have contained up to 600 Jews. In early 1942, German forces liquidated the ghetto, shooting 300 Jews at the Jewish cemetery.
In April 1942, German forces reported that Klichev had been captured by Soviet partisans, resulting in the burning of grain storage facilities. German forces recaptured the town shortly afterwards. The Red Army drove out the German occupation forces in the summer of 1944. A small number of Jews managed to survive the German occupation in and around Klichev, either in hiding or by joining the Soviet partisan forces, which were very active in this region.
SOURCES
The ghetto in Klichev is mentioned in the following publications: Pamiats’: Belarus’ (Minsk: Respublikanskaia Kniha, 1995), p. 442; Marat Botvinnik, Pamiatniki genotsida evreev Belarusi (Minsk: Belaruskaia Navuka, 2000), pp. 292, 299, 309; and Rossiiskaia Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia (Moscow: Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Jewish Encyclopedia Research Center, “Epos,” 2004), 5:108.
