Molchad. The synagogue.

The village of Molchad in the Baranovichi district has a lot of ancient buildings and historical sites. Here, in the center of the settlement, the Orthodox Church of Peter and Paul stands on a hill. There is also a Catholic church, a stone mill building, bakeries, taverns, and an old Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish cemetery.

A two-story stone synagogue building has been preserved in the center of the village. The building now houses the local collective farm office and shops.

According to researchers, Jews in Molchad appeared in the 16th century during the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At that time it was the territory of the Novogrudok voivodeship. The local community came from the city of Slonim and was first considered to be under the Slonim kagal. And in the 17th century, the local community became independent.

In 1648, a wooden synagogue was first mentioned in the village of Molchad. During the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1765, 369 Jews lived in Molchad. At the end of the 18th century, a religious trend of Judaism called Hasidism spread here.

And during the time of the Russian Empire, according to the census held in 1897, 68 percent of the population in the town was Jewish. In 1921, after the region became part of the Polish state after the Treaty of Riga, 1.5 thousand people were Jews. By 1941, there were one thousand twenty Jews left.

After the capture of Molchad by the Nazi occupiers in the summer of 1941, a ghetto was created, which the Nazis destroyed in 1943.