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The Holocaust in Belarus in general terms refers to the Nazi crimes committed during World War II on the territory of Belarus against Jews, ethnic Belarusians as well as other peoples deemed unworthy of life. The borders of Belarus however, shifted dramatically following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, which has been the source of confusion especially in the Soviet era as far as the scope of the Holocaust in Belarus is concerned. Before World War II began with the September 1, 1939 attack on Poland by Nazi Germany, sovereign Belarus of today did not exist yet. The Nazi-Soviet Pact signed in secrecy led to the parallel Soviet invasion of Poland from the east on September 17, 1939 and the forcible annexation of eastern half of prewar Poland into the Soviet Belarus and the Soviet Ukraine in the atmosphere of terror. The cities were renamed in Russian, the new Oblasts created,〔Northeastern territories of Poland were attached to Belastok Voblast, Hrodna Voblast, Navahrudak Voblast (soon renamed to Baranavichy Voblast), Pinsk Voblast and Vileyka (later Maladzyechna) Voblast of Byelorussian SSR〕 and the citizens of Poland turned into new Soviet subjects. Meanwhile, the Holocaust perpetrated by the Third Reich in the territory of Soviet Belarus began in 1941, during the German attack on the Soviet positions in Operation Barbarossa. It is estimated that Belarus lost a quarter of its prewar population in World War II, including most of its intellectual elite and 90% of the country’s Jewish population. Following encirclement battles of Operation Barbarossa, by the end of August 1941 all modern-day Belarus was occupied by Nazi Germany. The Nazis imposed a brutal regime, deporting to Germany some 380,000 young people for slave labour, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. At least 5,295 Belarusian settlements were destroyed and their inhabitants killed (out of 9,200 settlements that were burned or otherwise destroyed in Belarus during World War II). 243 Belarusian villages were burned down twice, 83 villages three times, and 22 villages were burned down four or more times in the Vitebsk region. 92 villages were burned down twice, 40 villages three times, nine villages four times, and six villages five or more times in the Mińsk region. More than 600 villages like Khatyn were burned with their entire population.〔 More than 209 cities and towns (out of 270 total) were destroyed. Himmler had pronounced a plan according to which ¾ of Belarusian population was designated for "eradication" and ¼ of racially cleaner population (blue eyes, light hair) would be allowed to serve Germans as slaves. Lucy Dawidowicz estimated that out of approximately 375,000 Jews living in the Belarusian SSR, 245,000 (65%) died in the Holocaust.〔Dawidowicz, Lucy. ''The War Against the Jews'', Bantam, 1986. p. 403.〕 == German invasion == Upon the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in Operation Barbarossa, Minsk came immediately under attack. The city was bombed on the first day of the war and taken over by Germans four days later. Many entire factories and museums, and thousands of civilians were evacuated East. The Nazis made Minsk the administrative centre of ''Reichskomissariat Ostland'' and repressed the local population. Communists and their sympathisers were killed or imprisoned; thousands were forced into slave labour, both locally and in Germany. Homes were expropriated to house German occupying forces. Thousands of residents starved as rations were expropriated and paid work was scarce. At the same time, some residents supported the Germans, especially in the earlier years. Some Belarusian nationalists hoped for formation of a Belarusian national state under the German protectorate. As a result, the city was divided. By 1942, Minsk became a major centre of the Soviet partisan resistance movement against the Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany. Minsk was the site of one of the largest Nazi-run ghettos in World War II, the Minsk Ghetto, which held over 100,000 Jews. A living space of 1.5 square meters was allotted for each person, with none for children. On the morning of 7 November the Germans rounded up thousands of Jews from the Minsk ghetto, forcing them to wear their best clothes in mockery of the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. They formed the captives into columns, gave them Soviet flags and ordered them to march and sing revolutionary songs. People were forced to smile for the cameras that were filming the scene. Once beyond Minsk, these 6,624 Jews were taken in trucks to the nearby village of Tukhinka and shot.〔Snyder,Timothy (2011) "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin". Vintage. p. 226.〕 Southern part of the Homel Voblast (currently Pietrykaŭ, Zhytkavichy, Rechytsa, Svetlahorsk, Turau, Mazyr, and several others) was annexed to the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, and was subordinate to the Żytomierz general district. After occupying a territory (small town, city, or village), the Germans attempted to determine, precisely, who exactly was Jewish. Usually, for this purpose, they arranged a registration of the remaining Jewish population. In other cases, they issued special decrees. The District Kommissar in Mozyrz explained to the regional Kommissar in Kalinkowicze, that it was necessary to consider anyone who was born to a Jewish parent a Jew. It was more precisely determined that a Christian baptism did not change matters, and baptizing Jews or half-Jews was categorically forbidden.〔Gosudarstvenny arkhiv Rossiiskoy Federatsii (State Archive of the Russian Federation, GARF), fond 8114, оpis 1, delo. 965, list 99.〕 The next stage was separating the Jews and establishing a ghetto. Twenty ghettos were established in the Homel Voblast, in which no less than 21,000 people were imprisoned. There were four ghettos in the city of Homel, two in Żłobin, two in Korma, and one in Rohaczew, Brahiń, Chojniki, Rzeczyca, and several other places.〔Yad Vashem Archives (YVA), Jerusalem, collection M-33/476, p. 18.〕 In Homel, the main ghetto was located in the Monastyrek district, to which the Nazis drove the residents (800 Jews) in the central part of town. The second ghetto was on Nowo-Ljubenskaja Street and housed 500 Jews, including 97 Jews brought to Homel from Loyew. The third ghetto was on Bychowskaja Street. Jews who lived in Nowo-Belica, on the left bank of the Soż River, were placed in a different ghetto. In September 1941, 200 ghetto residents were transferred to Monastyrek. Ghetto prisoners were doomed, but a temporary exception was made for the Jewish specialist workers. An order of a SS cavalry brigade from September 28, 1941 stated, “It is obvious that craftsmen may be temporarily preserved.”〔Rossiiskii Tsentr khranenia i izuchenia dokumentov noveishego vremeni (Russian Center of the Preservation and Study of the documents of the modern time (RTsHIDNI), f. 69, оp. 1, d. 818, l. 142.〕 However, ghettos were not organized in each place of the Homel Voblast. In some places the Jewish population was almost completely gone, and in others, the Jewish population was resettled to larger villages. Ghettos were not created in Brahiń, Vetka, Zhuravichi, Komarin, Kopatkevichi, Łojów, Narovlia, Svetilovichi, Uvarovichi, Terehov, Turów, Chojniki, and some other places. Regardless of this, men in these places were sent to perform compulsory labor and were subject to daily punishments and religious Jews were forced to have their beards shaved. Wehrmacht soldiers sometimes informed Jews about plans of the mass shootings. In Turów, the Wainblat sisters, Czasja (15 years old) and Bronja (13 years old) peeled potatoes at a German kitchen in exchange for food. Ilya Goberman remembers that an Austrian soldier warned him that Germans were annihilating all Jews. “Run, the faster, the better,” he used to say.〔Archive of Dr. Leonid Smilovitsky. Letter from Ilya Goberman in Kiriat Yam (Israel), September 17, 2000. 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Holocaust in Belarus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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