Lunna or Lunno ( be, Лунна, russian: Лунно, pl, Łunna) is a town in the
Grodno Region
Grodno Region ( pl, Grodzieńszczyzna) or Grodno Oblast or Hrodna Voblasts ( be, Гродзенская вобласць, ''Hrodzienskaja vobłasć'', , ''Haradzienščyna''; russian: Гродненская область, ''Grodnenskaya oblast' ...
in western
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
.
History
Łunna was granted
town rights
Town privileges or borough rights were important features of European towns during most of the second millennium. The city law customary in Central Europe probably dates back to Italian models, which in turn were oriented towards the tradition ...
in 1530 by Queen consort of Poland
Bona Sforza
Bona Sforza d'Aragona (2 February 1494 – 19 November 1557) was Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania as the second wife of Sigismund I the Old, and Duchess of Bari and Rossano by her own right. She was a surviving member of ...
. It was a
royal town, administratively located in the Grodno County in the
Troki Voivodeship
lt, Trakų vaivadija pl, Województwo trockie
, conventional_long_name = Trakai Voivodeship
, common_name = Trakai
, subdivision = Voivodeship
, nation = Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1413–1569)
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795)
, year_ ...
of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi-confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Crown of the Kingdom of ...
.
In the interwar period, Łunna, as it was known in Polish, was administratively located in the Grodno County in the
Białystok Voivodeship of Poland. In the 1921 census, 59.6% people declared
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
nationality, 39.2% declared Jewish nationality and 1.2% declared Belarusian nationality.
The town was under Soviet control in the first stage of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, from September 1939 to June 1941 when the German army occupied the town. At that time, the Jewish community of Lunna was around 1,300, with another 400 living in Wola. From October 1941 to November 1942, Łunna and Wola Jews were confined to a
ghetto
A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...
where five to seven families lived in each house. The Jews were brutalized, conscripted for
slave labor
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, and punished severely for any infraction. Many died in the ghetto. In November 1942, ghetto residents were transported to the Kielbasin transit camp where they lived for a month and then sent to
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
. Almost all died there, most immediately. Two, Zalman Gradowski and Josef Dereszynski, led an armed uprising against the guards in Auschwitz in October 1944, an uprising in which three other Lunna residents participated. All died in the revolt. In all, a few more than a dozen Jews from Lunna survived the war.
See also
*
List of cities in Belarus#Hrodna Province
References
External links
ShtetLinks: LUNNAThe Restored Jewish Cemetery at Lunna, Belarus
*
{{Authority control
Populated places in Grodno Region
Trakai Voivodeship
Grodnensky Uyezd
Białystok Voivodeship (1919–1939)
Belastok Region
Holocaust locations in Belarus