The town was founded in 1564 by voivode of
Witebsk Stefan Zbaraski on the order of King
Sigismund II Augustus as a defensive stronghold against possible Muscovite attacks. In 1570 he granted various
privileges, including two annual
fairs to attract settlers.
Jewish community Surazh was a
shtetl, with a Jewish population of 1,246 in 1900. In 1917, there were 6 synagogues. All of them were wooden, except one made out of stone. There were 461 Jews in Surazh in 1939 (15.4 % of the total population). The village was under German occupation from 1941 to 1943.
Einsatzkommando 9 carried out the murder of the Jews of Surazh in conjunction with an antipartisan operation. On August 12, 1941, between 600 and 750 Jews were gathered by the Germans on the location of the former printing office in Surazh. Then, they were taken and shot behind the linen factory, 2 km away from the village, in pits of the ravine, known as Loubtchyno. The bodies of the victims were exhumed and reburied after the war in the Jewish cemetery. ==References==