The Holocaust in Chachersk was the ghettoization and genocide of the Jews and Romani people mainly in the Belarusian shtetl of Chachersk, as well as in the greater Chachersk District located inside the Gomel Oblast during the Holocaust. Invading Soviet-controlled Belarus as a part of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany subjected Chachersk and neighboring shtetls to systematic extermination. [1] [2] Entire Jewish and Romani populations in the region were rounded up in Nazi-organized ghettos and later murdered, [1] [3] in one of the earliest phases of the Final Solution.
Before becoming a part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1919, Chachersk was a part of the Pale of Settlement, the only section of the Russian Empire in which Jews could permanently live. Thus, Eastern Belarus had a large Jewish population, with the January 1939 Soviet census estimating the Jewish population of the region at 375,000 people. [4] The 1939 census further estimated the Jewish population of the Gomel Oblast at 62,146 inhabitants, [4] and the population of the shtetl of Chachersk at around 977 Jews. [1]
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, incited by Adolf Hitler's desire to expand Nazi Germany by gaining Lebensraum for the German people. Nazi ideology dictated that in order for the so-called "Aryan race" to thrive and multiply in newly captured land, it must first be rid of "life unworthy of life". Since Chachersk had a predominantly Jewish population, as well as a substantial concentration of Romani people, it would be a prime target for genocide. German troops invaded Eastern Belarus and the Gomel Oblast, but were staved off by fierce resistance from partisans and Red Army units, who briefly halted the German advance. [1] However, they were ultimately unsuccessful in defeating the Nazis, as the last pockets of Soviet and partisan resistance were dispatched in August and September 1941, leaving the Jews of Gomel Oblast defenseless and subject to the whims of the Germans. [1] Hearing word of the imminent advance of the Wehrmacht and of Nazi atrocities, the Jews of Chachersk organized a mass evacuation, which proved successful. [1] The majority of the Jewish inhabitants were evacuated from the shtetl, and around 200 remained when the Germans occupied Chachersk and the surrounding area. [3]
Chachersk was captured by the Nazis on August 14, 1941, and as with the rest of the Gomel Oblast, was put under the jurisdiction of the rear of Army Group Center, commanded by General der Infanterie Max von Schenckendorff. [2] A ghetto in the shtetl of Chachersk was immediately established for the remaining 200 Jews in September 1941. [3] Like the numerous other ghettos in Nazi-controlled Europe, living conditions in the Chachersk Ghetto were inhumane and many Jews who disobeyed the Germans were locked away in prisons, where they died of starvation. [1] As months went by, the Nazis started to gradually murder the Jewish population of Chachersk; in late November 1941, 80 Jews were rounded up and were executed in an anti-tank ditch. [3] On December 28, 1941, the ghetto of Chechersk was liquidated, on the orders of General Schenckendorff. [2] The Jews of Chechersk and local Romani people were shot and buried together in a mass grave, [3] in an Aktion that murdered a total of 432 people. [1] While most of the Jews and Romani were shot, the elderly, the frail and some women and children were strangled to death, as these victims were sickly and could be easily murdered without the effort of rounding them up and shooting them. [1] Einsatzgruppen death squads, Wehrmacht soldiers and Belarusian Auxiliary Police worked in conjunction to exterminate the Jews and Romani, and the rank-and-file army units were reported to show full participation in the murders. [2] The Belarusian Auxiliary Police displayed exceptional cruelty, and often searched for hiding Jews after the mass-murders had taken place. [1]
Maly Trostenets is a village near Minsk in Belarus, formerly the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. During Nazi Germany's occupation of the area during World War II, the village became the location of a Nazi extermination site.
Ivatsevichy is a town in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Ivatsevichy District. As of 2024, it has a population of 22,377.
The Dzyatlava Ghetto, Zdzięcioł Ghetto, or Zhetel Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto in the town of Dzyatlava, Western Belarus during World War II. After several months of Nazi ad-hoc persecution that began after the launch of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the new German authorities officially created a ghetto for all local Jews on 22 February 1942. Prior to 1939, the town (Zdzięcioł) was part of Nowogródek Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic.
In the early modern era, European Jews were confined to ghettos and placed under strict regulations as well as restrictions in many European cities. The character of ghettos fluctuated over the centuries. In some cases, they comprised a Jewish quarter, the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. In many instances, ghettos were places of terrible poverty and during periods of population growth, ghettos had narrow streets and small, crowded houses. Residents had their own justice system. Around the ghetto stood walls that, during pogroms, were closed from inside to protect the community, but from the outside during Christmas, Pesach, and Easter Week to prevent the Jews from leaving at those times.
Brahin or Bragin is an urban-type settlement in Gomel Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Brahin District. It stands on the banks of the Brahinka River, 28 kilometres (17 mi) from the nearest railway. As of 2024, it has a population of 4,570.
The Holocaust in Belarus refers to the systematic extermination of Jews living in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic during its occupation by Nazi Germany in World War II. It is estimated that roughly 800,000 Belarusian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. However, other estimates place the number of Jews killed between 500,000 and 550,000.
The Belarusian Auxiliary Police was a German force established in July 1941 in occupied Belarus, staffed by local collaborators. In western Belarus, auxiliary police were created in the form of Schutzmannschaften units, while in the east they were made as the Ordnungsdienst.
The Brześć Ghetto or the Ghetto in Brest on the Bug, also: Brześć nad Bugiem Ghetto, and Brest-Litovsk Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto created in occupied Western Belarus in December 1941, six months after the German troops had invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Less than a year after the creation of the ghetto, around October 15–18, 1942, most of approximately 20,000 Jewish inhabitants of Brest (Brześć) were murdered; over 5,000 were executed locally at the Brest Fortress on the orders of Karl Eberhard Schöngarth; the rest in the secluded forest of the Bronna Góra extermination site, sent there aboard Holocaust trains under the guise of 'resettlement'.
The Pińsk Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto created by Nazi Germany for the confinement of Jews living in the city of Pińsk, Western Belarus. Pińsk, located in eastern Poland, was occupied by the Red Army in 1939 and incorporated into the Byelorussian SSR. The city was captured by the Wehrmacht in Operation Barbarossa in July 1941; it was incorporated into the German Reichskommissariat Ukraine in autumn of 1941.
Bronna Góra is the name of a secluded area in present-day Belarus where mass killings of Polish Jews were carried out by Nazi Germany during World War II. The location was part of the eastern half of occupied Poland, which had been invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939 in agreement with Germany, and two years later captured by the Wehrmacht in Operation Barbarossa. It is estimated that from May 1942 until November of that year, during the most deadly phase of the Holocaust in Poland, some 50,000 Jews were murdered at Bronna Góra forest in death pits. The victims were transported there in Holocaust trains from Nazi ghettos, including from the Brześć Ghetto and the Pińsk Ghetto, and from the ghettos in the surrounding area, as well as from Reichskommissariat Ostland.
Daniel Romanovsky was an Israeli historian and researcher who has contributed to the study of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union under German occupation in World War II. Romanovsky was a Soviet refusenik politically active since the 1970s. Private seminars on the history of the Jews were held in his Leningrad apartment in the 1980s. Research on the topic was difficult in the Soviet Union because of government restrictions. In the 1970s and 1980s Romanovsky interviewed over 100 witnesses to the Holocaust, including Jews, Russians, and Belarusians, recording and cataloguing their accounts of the Final Solution.
The Słonim Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto established in 1941 by the SS in Slonim, Western Belarus during World War II. Prior to 1939, the town (Słonim) was part of the Second Polish Republic. The town was captured in late June 1941 by the Wehrmacht in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa. Anti-Jewish measures were promptly put into place, and a barb-wire surrounded ghetto had been created by 12 July. The killings of Jews by mobile extermination squads began almost immediately. Mass killings took place in July and November. The survivors were used as slave labor. After each killing, significant looting by the Nazis occurred. A Judenrat was established to pay a large ransom; after paying out 2 million roubles of gold, its members were then executed. In March 1942, ghettos in the surrounding areas were merged into the Słonim ghetto.
The Mogilev Conference was a September 1941 Wehrmacht training event aimed at improving security in the rear of Army Group Centre during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The event was organised by General Max von Schenckendorff, commander of Army Group Centre Rear Area, in cooperation with the officials of the security and intelligence services of Nazi Germany—SS and the Sicherheitsdienst —operating in the same area. Ostensibly an "anti-partisan" training conference, the event marked an escalation of violence against Jews and other civilians in the areas under Schenckendorff's command.
The question of how much knowledge German civilians had about the Holocaust whilst it was happening has been studied and debated by historians. In Nazi Germany, it was an open secret among the population by 1943, Peter Longerich argues, but some authors place it even earlier. After the war, many Germans claimed that they were ignorant of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime, a claim associated with the stereotypical phrase "Davon haben wir nichts gewusst".
The Rakaŭ Ghetto was established on 21 August 1941 in Rakaŭ, in the Byelorussian SSR, soon after the city's capture by Nazi Germany during Operation Barbarossa. An estimated 1,050 Jews were killed in the ghetto between its creation on 21 August 1941 and its liquidation on 4 February 1942.
Shchadryn or Shchedrin is an agrotown in Zhlobin District, Gomel Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Shchadryn selsoviet.
The Holocaust in the Byaroza District was the systematic persecution and extermination of Jews in the Byaroza District of the Brest Region by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941 to 1944 during World War II. This atrocity was part of the broader "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", which aimed at the complete annihilation of European Jewry and formed an integral part of the Holocaust in Belarus.
Ivacevichi Ghetto was a Jewish ghetto, a place of forced resettlement for the Jews of the town of Ivacevichi in the Brest Region and nearby settlements during the Holocaust in Belarus, under the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany during World War II.