Copys
| Copies | Copys | |||
| Копысь | Копысь | |||
| ( Belarus. ) | ( Russian ) | |||
|
|||
| State : |
 Belarus
|
||
| Woblasz : |
 Vitebsk
|
||
| Coordinates : | 54 ° 19 ′ N , 30 ° 18 ′ E | ||
| Residents : | 900 (2010) | ||
| Time zone : | Moscow time ( UTC + 3 ) | ||
| Telephone code : | (+375) 216 | ||
| Postal code : | 211038 | ||
| License plate : | 3 | ||
| Community type: | Urban-type settlement | ||
|
|||
Kopys ( Belarusian and Russian Копысь ) is a village in the Orsha Rajon ( Wizebskaja Woblasz ) in Belarus on the Dnieper River . In 1994 the place had 5200 inhabitants, four years later still 1200. At the beginning of the 20th century Kopys had ten churches and a synagogue.
history
The first written mention of the place that has been preserved comes from the year 1059.
In 1812 Denis Vasilyevich Dawydow made numerous prisoners in Kopys when he cut off a French train.
On June 29, 1941, the Germans marched into Kopys. In December of the same year, the entire Jewish population had to move to a ghetto, which was set up in a flax mill two kilometers from the town. On January 12, 1942, the approximately 250 people who had been detained in this ghetto were shot. The day before, Tevie Shmerkin and his son Abram had fled the ghetto, where Abram Shmerkin had been wounded. The two joined the partisans in the area. In 1973 a memorial stone was erected at the site of the execution of the ghetto inmates.
Economy and Jewish residents
From the 15th century ceramics production for Kopys is documented; in the 19th century, the first factories were established, producing tiles for stoves and fireplaces as well as statues. Well-known was the company of a man named Peselnik, which was founded in 1860 and employed 131 people in 1898. Other factory owners were Ginzburg, Shevelev, Gurevich, Alperovich, Kosoy, Shapiro, Magin, Schalyta, Soloveichi, Zaretsky and Ioffe. At the beginning of the 20th century, around 800 people worked in the ceramic factories, around a third of the employees were Jews.
In addition to the ceramics factories, there was a brewery in Kopys from the beginning of the 19th century , and there were two mills in the place. Wine was also produced in Kopys. The Kapust Hasidim come from Kopys.
15 of the 18 ceramic production facilities that existed in the second half of the 19th century were in the hands of Jewish owners. For several centuries, Kopys had a high proportion of Jews in the population: In the first all-Russian census of 1897 , Kopys had 3,384 inhabitants, 1,399 of which, over 40%, were Jewish. In 1926, 1,176 of the 3,584 inhabitants were still Jewish; in 1970 Kopys had only four Jewish residents.
Daughters and sons of the place
- Aljaksandr Lukashenka (* 1954), President of Belarus
- David Remez (1886–1951), Israeli politician of the Zionist labor movement
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Copies on Shtetle.co.il ( Memento of the original from February 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Meyers Großes Konversationslexikon, Volume 11, 1907
- ^ Meyers Konversationslexikon from 1888
