There were farmers among them, though few. They mostly dealt in craft and shop-keeping. They also held windmills and smithies. The relations with the inhabitants and estate owners were friendly.

In almost every estate there was a Jew who leased the milk products. The estates were abundant in fruit orchards. The fruits of Slutzk district were famous and lessee Jews exported the fruit to far places.

The Jews in the urban areas nicknamed their village brothers Yishuvniks [a village Jew, with a slight connotation of scorn]. Life in the primitive rural surroundings affected the ways, customs and cultural level of these Jews. (with some exceptions, of course). On the other hand, this seclusion and this being cut off, made these Jews guileless and warm, hospitable, and generous, honoring everything that has to do with Torah and spirit. The rural Jews, spread over various settlements, enjoyed good relationship among them and were ready to help each other. They brought to their homes private tutors from the city and hosted them in their homes in turns. They strictly observed the Sabbath and Holidays and used to gather for public prayer.

Some of these Jews were not put in the ghetto and were not murdered by the Nazis. When the Germans invaded Belarus and entered these villages they found out that the job of annihilation had already been completed by the Belarussian farmers who preceded them…

After the retreat of the Red army, at that interim time, these settlements were left with no supervision and control, they attacked their Jewish neighbors (even their friends) with axes, spades, and other deadly weapons and massacred them cruelly, looting their property. Following are fragmental news about those Jews during the Holocaust:

Village Halinka south of Kletsk was a resort place for the Jews of Kletsk and surroundings. This village did not have very rich people nor “pensions” and villas. The vacationers found accommodation in the farmers’ cabins and in the houses of the local Jewish inhabitants. The view was magnificent and the pine forest was refreshing. Sick Jews came to recuperate or just to rest from their troubles. Some came for a weekend. Crowds of youth filled the forest with hustle and bustle. The farmers were envious of them despite the benefit they derived from the Jews. The Jews of Halinka enjoyed themselves. Summer was a prosperous time for R’ Chaim the shokhet [ritual slaughterer]. Itzkovitz, the craftsman, established a pension at the edge of the forest, etc., All benefited by the spirit of the city and its culture that was brought to the rural settlement.

The lot of Halinka’s Jews is obscure. Rumor has it that the Jewish families were expelled to the nearby ghettos and there they found their death.

Zawstrobiocha, south-east of Kletsk, near the border of Polesia, was a small shtetl surrounded by thick forests. Here the talents and industry of the Jews reached their peak. In this solitary area, and in a short time, new life started: saw-mills, smithies, and other plants connected to the forests (such as use of mushrooms, squirrels’ skins, etc.). Business stores and offices provided employment for many Jewish workers, clerks and wood-selectors. Many families had pieces of field and garden land, which they tilled.

Jews from neighboring shtetls who lost their means of living streamed to Zawstrobiocha and settled there. By the time the Germans invaded they numbered 40 families, around 200 members, a sort of a typical shtetl with a rabbi and a shokhet, a Hebrew school, Zionist youth, etc. According to what we know, the Jews of the place were expelled to the nearby ghettos and annihilated completely.

The villages Moritz, Kulak, Butcha, etc. were also in this surrounding area. Rural Jews settled close to the land, forest, nature. In that solitary and foreign surroundings, among the rough and ignorant farmers of Polesia, they preserved their uniqueness, strictly observed their religious custom and Holidays. They prayed together in public on Sabbath and Holidays, provided traditional education for their children and invited teachers for their children. According to the news we received, the Christian neighbors cruelly massacred all of them before the Germans reached the place, and looted all their property.

East of Kletsk, in the direction of Slutzk, near the Moscow-Warsaw road, many Jewish families settled in villages, estates and other settlements. Liubiniotz village had a legal standing of a station-post-office from the days of the Czars. A famous Jewish company from Warsaw – brothers Shifrin from Timkevitz – founded here a saw-mill and offices. The village was lively with Jewish workers and clerks and also guests and passers-by for their businesses. Yoseph Lis’ inn, leaser of the station, was always full of people. His two sons escaped to the forest.

In the nearby village Nehorna-Plaskovitz they held quorums to pray on Sabbath and Holidays.

Two Jewish families lived in the village Ratsheika. We know that the family of the butcher Gelfand, resident of the village and his old mother, were murdered by the farmers at the time of the German invasion. (Their daughter lives in Haifa, Israel)

Well-to-do Jewish families resided in neighboring Horvitz. The owner of the mill was an enlightened Jew. His two sons worked in nearby Ostrobitza. When the Germans invaded, they escaped for a short while to the near forest. When they came out of the forest, the farmers attacked them and murdered them.

On the highway leading from Kletsk to Timkovitz and Kapolia, near the village and the estate, there stood an inn whose owners were R’ Moshe Z’ukhovitzki and his sons.

That was a very unique rural family. R’ Moshe was famous as an industrious business man and a very observant Jew, never stopping his study of the books. He leased from poritz Vinilovitz, a Polish estate owner, a politician and liberal activist and beloved by the Jews, a piece of land and garden, creamery, windmill and inn (kretchme) close to the road. (Vinilovitz was the president of the Polish “Kolo” in the Council of the Russian State – Gosudrastowni Soviet – and proposed a law to null the limitations on the Jews, and sent a memorandum to Czar Nicholai, who loved and honored him).

When R’ Moshe became old, his sons and his son-in-law Avraham inherited the businesses. He retired to his books. It is told that when he was old and the only daughter of the poritz died, he came to the palace and recited Psalms near her bed for several hours… Immediately after doing so, he had compunctions about perhaps doing something against the rules. He approached the rabbis and they defined the deed as a grave transgression and ruled that he had to atone for it in full repentance, prayer and charity and ordered him 100 days of ta’anit. He fulfilled their ruling the rest of his life…

In the time of the Czarist Russia the inn was used as a stop for rest for passersby and travelers between shtetls, especially for wagon owners, butchers and horse dealers who traveled weekly to the market days and fairs. They used to get up at dawn, feed the horses, pray Minkha [the morning prayer], and eat a breakfast containing the best products of the creamery. Yeshaya, the owner of the inn was considered a Jew of culture, good-natured and pleasant in dealing with people. He acquired wealth and property.

Kletsk adopted a new custom: unlike in previous times, they started having their wedding celebrations out of town in a plain and modest manner - to save up on expenditures and for other reasons. There was no better place than the inn, appropriate for this purpose. Here, also were conducted the quorums on Sabbath, Holidays and High Holidays, attended by rural Jews from the surrounding neighborhood of Timkovitz such as Bretkova, Brigda. Dz’ertsini etc. R’ Moshe was renowned as a khazan and superior reader of Torah. His son, Yeshaya blew the shofar skillfully and the eldest son, R’ Chaim Meir, owner of the windmill, contributed as well to the prayer and to reading the Torah. Many members of the family wandered with time to America and the rest perished in the Holocaust.

The small shtetl Medodz’itz’ was located in the surroundings of Siniavka. It had an idyllic look with its beautiful view, streaming river, gardens and forests around it. The shtetl developed speedily. Enterprising Jews of wealth settled here, coming from far, and established various factories such as saw-mills, tarring industry, etc.

In 1939 the shtetl numbered 40 Jewish families, almost all of them well-to-do and sound-settled. During WWI, expulsion did not spare them. At the end of the war they returned to the shtetl which under the Polish rule developed and prospered.

Several weeks after the Germans invaded, the Nazis took out all the Jews out of town next to the Buda train station and shot them all. Prior to that, they chose the young and pretty girls, put them in the near police station and raped and tortured them all night. In the morning they took them to the common murder grounds and killed them.

Some facts: the daughter of the pharmacist tried to commit suicide by drinking poison. She failed and the Nazis who forced their way into her house found her gasping with pain and shot her to death.

There was one family in the shtetl that had one of her daughters convert to Christianity and married to a Christian. On the day of the massacre, this convert succeeded in hiding the young son of her Jewish sister. This was discovered by the Germans. They searched her house and demanded to hand the boy over. She managed to transfer the boy into the hands of the Catholic priest and thanks to his recommendations and because of his help to the Germans, both she and the boy survived.

Of all the families only one family survived: Israel Prustsitski, his wife and 6 children (all of them live in Ramat Gan, Israel). This is a unique case, among the very few survivors of the Holocaust.

The story of the rescue of this family is rich with adventures and miracles and seems like a nightmare. The father of the family had a tarring business in the forest near the village and was acquainted with all the paths in the forest. On the day of the massacre, the family found shelter in the depth of the forest. Later they were joined by Jews, survivors of the massacre in Mliakhovitz and other settlements. They got some rifles and organized a small partisan group that frightened the farmers to get from them food.

The Germans extended their efforts to catch Prushtzitzki and his group but in vain. They promised an award of 20 kg. salt – a rare commodity in those days – for the discovery of the partisans. The farmers in the neighborhood – most of them of Polish origin, arrant haters of Jews, who helped the Germans carry out their atrocities against the Jews, armed themselves and hunted Jews but did not dare come near Prushtzitziki’s shelter.(victims who were killed here were the bothers Bereain, escapees of ghetto Liakhovitz.)

When danger became more acute, the group moved to the thick forests in the vicinity of Babin, district of Polesia where they established shelters in remote corners. They survived like that for 3 years until liberation day and made Aliya to the State of Israel.