Alternate names: Klyetsk [Bel], Kletsk [Rus], Kleck [Pol], Kletzk [Yid], Klezk, Klecak, Russian: Клецк. Belarusian: Клецак. Yiddish: קלעצק.. Located at 53°04' N, 26°38' E , 69.1 miles SW of Minsk, 10 miles S of Nesvizh (Nieśwież), 25 miles E of Baranavichy. in Slutz uezd, Minsk guberniya-Minsk Oblast. Kletsk was in the Kletskaya volost'. 1900 Jewish census: 3,415.Yizkor: Pinkas Kletsk (Tel Aviv, 1959) ShtetLink. This city in the Minsk oblast is located on the Lan river. As of 1989 population: about 10,000 inhabitants. [March 2009] Belarus Sig Newsletter article. [October 2000]
Soon after the 1506 Battle of Kleck when Polish-Lithuanian forces of Michał Gliński saved the town from the Tartars, the town became a property of the Radziwiłł family, who attracted Jewish settlers. On September 5, 1522: King Sigismund I the Old of Poland awarded Isaac Jesofovitch, a Jew of Brest, a lease for three years for inns and other revenue sources in Kletsk. A January 21, 1529 Yiddish document imposed military duties on Jews in Kletsck and other towns. On June 15, 1542, Zachariah Markovich (a Kletzk Jew) lost the lawsuit brought by boyar Grishko Kochevich when his oxen broke into Grishko's field and damaged grain. 1552-55 census shows that Jewish householders living on Wilna street, on Sloboda, and owning gardens in the outskirts. In 1586 the town became the capital of Radziwiłł's ordynacja, the impetus of town development into a regional commercial center. The town was a part of Brześć powiat until 1623 when it was transferred with neighbouring towns to Pinsk district. The town originally was located on the opposite bank of the river on the road leading to Lyakhovich; but after a 1705 destructive fire was rebuilt on its present site. By 1700, the number of Jews grew significantly at the same time the town was Calvinist. Annexed by the Russian Empire due to partitions of Poland, the town was repeatedly destroyed by fire in 1817, 1845, 1865, and 1886. 1903 Kletzk had about 6,000 were Jews. Restored to Poland, the Soviet Union annexed it in 1939 until the Nazi German invasion in 194 when a large massacre of local Jews took place on October 6, 1941, with about 4,000 people murdered. By August 21, 1942, about 2000 remaining area Jews were massed in a ghetto and then sent to concentration camps. The Jewish cemetery, a large synagogue founded by Prince Radziwiłł in 1796, an early 18th century bet midrash built, and fifteen smaller houses of prayer were destroyed. Mechit (Medvedichi?) used this Jewish community. [March 2009]
photos of the massacre site of Kletsk Jews on 22 July 1942. [March 2009]
cemetery photos. Cemetery is landmarked but neglected. [February 2010]