Kartuz-Bereze

(Byaroza, Belarus)

52°32' 24°59'

[Page 326]

[Blank]

[Page 327]

Bereze or Kartuz-Bereze

Translated by Gloria Berkenstat Freund

A shtetl [town] in Grodno gybernia [province]. Part of the Brisker Województwoshaft [provincial region] until its transfer to Russia (during the division of Poland).

Jews had lived there since the end of the 17^th century.

The ruler of the shtetl – the great hetman [military commander] and Lithuanian prince, Leon Sapieha – permitted the Jews to build a prayer house in 1680, without which there would have been barriers to reciting their prayers. With this, he wanted to influence the Jews to want to settle in Bereze. In addition, he permitted the building of houses and their decoration at the discretion [of the Jews]. He also gave them the same right as all other Jews who lived in the areas of his rule.

He made sure that the freedom that he gave the Jews would be maintained by his heirs.

The son of the hetman, in a subsequent edict from his father, on the same sheet of paper, added the words:

“I [will] observe the [terms] of my father, Kazimir Leon Sapieha, for the Jews of Bereze.”

The Jewish population in the shtetl consisted of 242 souls according to the official information of 1766.

In 1909, the shtetl belonged to the Pruzhany district, Grodno gybernia [province].

In 1847, the Bereze Jewish community numbered 261 men and 254 women.

In 1897, in the census, there were 6,226 residents in Bereze. Of them, 2,623 Jews, 2,600 Provoslavne [Russian Orthodox] and 800 Russian Catholics.

Evreyskaya Entsiklopedia [Jewish Encyclopedia], Petersburg, 1909, volume 4, page 216.

Table of Contents

Next Page »

This material is made available by JewishGen, Inc. and the Yizkor Book Project for the purpose of
fulfilling our mission of disseminating information about the Holocaust and destroyed Jewish communities.
This material may not be copied, sold or bartered without JewishGen, Inc.'s permission. Rights may be reserved by the copyright holder.

JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material for verification.
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited.

Pruzhany, Belarus Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page

Yizkor Book Director, Lance Ackerfeld
This web page created by Lance Ackerfeld