The Lithuanian Twelfth Schutzmannschaft (auxiliary police) Battalion's 1st Company, led by Lieutenant Z. Kemzura, massacred between 1,000 and 1,900 Jews from the city on October 21, 1941, shooting them and throwing them into a pit; many were buried alive.
In Russia there is a city of Dzerzhinsk, a village of Dzerzhinsk and three other cities called Dzerzhinskiy; in former Soviet republics, there are cities named Dzerzhinski (Armenia), Dzyarzhynsk (Belarus), and Dzerzhinsk (Ukraine).