Editing Turov, Belarus (section)

===Jewish population===
The [[shtetl]] (Jewish community) in Turov began in the 16th century. The population of Jewish people reached its peak at the end of the 19th century. After that time they began to emigrate to larger cities and to other countries. Turov was subjected to [[pogroms]] (violence against Jewish communities), but the Jewish population managed to hang on through [[World War I]] and the [[Russian Revolution]]. Even after the [[Bolsheviks]] took over, the Jewish population continued to carry on their traditions and there was a degree of tolerance among the non-Jewish population of Turov. Greater efforts to suppress religious activity began in the 1930s.<ref name="Jewish">[http://www.jewishgen.org/Belarus/newsletters/misc/TurovShtetl/index.html Smilovitsky, Leonid, A Byelorussian Border Shtetl in the 1920s and 1930s: The Case of Turov]</ref>

In 1921 two schools opened in Turov, both a general school and a [[Yiddish]] school; both were attended by Jewish students. There were three synagogues in Turov, one Misnagdim and two Hasidic. All three closed in the early 1930s.<ref name="Jewish" />

The Jewish population in Turov was wiped out during [[World War II]]. Some Jews volunteered to join the army to fight the Germans. The first German army units to come through Turov, in July 1941, did nothing to the Jewish population. The Holocaust began with the arrival of later units. Very few families returned after the war and as of 2003 there were only three Jewish people living in Turov.<ref name="Jewish" />