Holocaust in Belarus - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Holocaust in Belarus refers to the Nazi crime

Nazi crime

Nazi crime or Hitlerite crime is a legal concept used in some legal systems .In the Polish legal system a Nazi crime is an action carried out by, inspired by or tolerated by public functionaries of the Third Reich that also classifies as a crime against humanity or other persecutions of people...

s during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany

Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany

The occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany occurred as part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 and ended in August 1944 with the Soviet Operation Bagration.- Background :...

on the territory of contemporary Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

, and against the ethnic Belarusians

Belarusians

Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...

outside it. Belarus

Belarus

lost a quarter of its pre-war population, including most of its intellectual elite and 90% of the country’s Jewish

History of the Jews in Belarus

The Jews in Belarus were the third largest ethnic group in the country in the first half of the 20th century. Before World War II, Jews were the third among the ethnic groups in Belarus, and in cities and towns comprised more than 40% of the population. The population of cities such as Minsk,...

population. Following encirclement battles, all of the present-day Belarus territory was occupied by the Nazi Germany by the end of August 1941. The Nazis imposed a brutal regime, deporting to Germany some 380,000 young people for slave labour, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians more. At least 5,295 Belarusian settlements were destroyed and their inhabitants killed (out of 9200 settlements that were burned or otherwise destroyed in Belarus during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

). 243 Belarusian villages were burned down twice, 83 villages three times, and 22 villages were burned down four or more times in the Witebsk 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 Chatyń

Khatyn massacre

Khatyn, Chatyń was a village in Belarus, in Lahojsk district, Minsk Voblast. On March 22, 1943, the population of the village was massacred during World War II by the 118th Schutzmannschaft battalion, formed in July 1942 in Kiev, mostly from Ukrainian collaborators, prisoners of war and...

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 3/4 of Belarusian population was designated for "eradication" and 1/4 of racially cleaner population (blue eyes, light hair) would be allowed to serve Germans as slaves

Unfree labour

Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery as well as all other related institutions .-Payment for unfree labour:If payment occurs, it may be in one or more of the following forms:...

German invasion

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

on June 22, 1941 in the Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa

Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

Minsk

- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...

was 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, museums and thousands of civilians had been 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

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Homes were expropriated to house German occupying forces. Thousands 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

Protectorate

In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...

. As a result, the city was divided.

By 1942 Minsk became a major centre of Soviet partisan

Soviet partisans

The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....

resistance movement against the Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany

Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany

The occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany occurred as part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 and ended in August 1944 with the Soviet Operation Bagration.- Background :...

during World War II

World War II

. Minsk was the site of one of the largest Nazi-run ghetto

Ghetto

A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...

s in World War II, the Minsk Ghetto

Minsk Ghetto

The Minsk Ghetto was created soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. It was one of the largest in Eastern Europe, and the largest in the German-occupied territory of the Soviet Union...

, which held over 100,000 Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

. A living space of 1.5 square meters was allotted for each person, with none for children.

As new Jews were brought to the ghetto from the west, the existing Jewish residents were slaughtered - 2,000 Jews were killed on November 7, 1941.

Southern part of the Homel Voblast

Homiel Voblast

Homiel Voblast or Gomel Oblast is a province of Belarus with its administrative center being Homyel.Important cities within the voblasts include: Gomel, Mazyr, Zhlobin, Svetlahorsk, Rechytsia, Kalinkavichy, Rahachow, Dobrush...

(currently Petryków

Petrikov

Petrikov is a town in Belarus, west of Gomel. Its population is over 11,000.Previously part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania after the partition of Poland it became part of the Russian Empire.The town's name is also used by a Dutch brand of vodka....

, Żytkowicze, Rzeczyca

Rechytsa

Rechytsa is a town in the Homiel Province of Belarus. It is center of Rechytsa Raion. The city is situated at the mouth of Rechitsa river, flowing into Dnieper. The population is 65,532 as of 2005.-History:...

, Szacilkawicze

Svetlahorsk

Svietlahо́rsk is a town in Homiel Province of western Belarus. It is located by the river Biarezina and has 69,900 inhabitants .-Industry:Within Svietlаhorsk there are many industrial activities and organizations...

, Turów

Turau

Turaŭ or Turaw is a town in the Zhytkavichy Raion of Homiel Province of Belarus and the former capital of the medieval Principality of Turov and Pinsk.-History:...

, Mozyrz

Mazyr

Mazyr, also Mozyr is a city in the Homiel Province of Belarus on the Pripyat River about 210 km east of Pinsk and 100 km northwest of Chernobyl and is located at approximately . The population is 111,770 . The total urban area including Kalinkavičy across the river has a population of...

, and several others) was annexed to the Reichskommissariat Ukraine

Reichskommissariat Ukraine

Reichskommissariat Ukraine , literally "Reich Commissariat of Ukraine", was the civilian occupation regime of much of German-occupied Ukraine during World War II. Between September 1941 and March 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Reichskommissar Erich Koch as a colony...

, and was subordinate to the Żytomierz

Zhytomyr

Zhytomyr is a city in the North of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zhytomyr Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Zhytomyr Raion...

general district. After occupying a territory (small town

Small Town

Small Town is a song written by John Cougar Mellencamp and released on his 1985 album Scarecrow. The song reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.-Content:...

, city

City

A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...

, or village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

), 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

Kalinkavichy

Kalinkavičy , or Kalinkoviči, is a town in the Homiel Province of south-eastern Belarus. Kalinkavičy is located beside the Pripyat River, opposite the town of Mazyr, and is the site of one of country's most important railway junctions...

, that it was necessary to consider anyone who was born to a Jewish parent a Jew. It was more precisely determined that a Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

baptism

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

did not change matters, and baptizing Jews or half-Jews was categorically forbidden. 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

Zhlobin

Zhlobin is a city in the Homiel Voblast of Belarus, on the Dnieper river. As of 2005, the population is 75.866. The town was first mentioned in writing in 1492....

, two in Korma, and one in Rohaczew

Rahachow

Rahachow - also transliteratedRahačoŭ .The notable Rabbi, Yosef Rosen , known as the Rogatchover Gaon , was born and raised here. The artist Anatoli Lvovich Kaplan was born and brought up here, as was former NHL hockey player Sergei Bautin.- External links :*...

, Brahiń

Brahin (town)

Brahin is an urban-type settlement in Belarus and an administrative center of Brahin Raion. It stands on the banks of Braginka river, 28 km from the nearest railway , and has a population of 3,700....

, Chojniki

Khoiniki

Khoiniki is a town in Homiel Voblast, Belarus. In 1986, the city suffered from heavy radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. It is located at ....

, Rzeczyca, and several other places. 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 Łojów. The third ghetto was on Bychowskaja Street. Jews who lived in Nowo-Belica, on the left bank of the Soż

Sozh

Sozh is an international river flowing in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. It is a left bank tributary of the Dnieper River. Sozh passes through Gomel, the second largest city in Belarus....

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.” 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

Vetka

Vetka is a small, historical town in Belarus, situated on the bank of the Sozh River.It is the principal centre in Vetka Raion in Gomel Region....

, 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

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

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 Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n soldier warned him that Germans were annihilating all Jews. “Run, the faster, the better,” he used to say.

Methods of carrying out actions

The destruction of a ghetto was planned in advance and carried out as a carefully prepared operation. Usually it was done in two stages. First, young and strong men were selected and led out of the ghetto under the pretense that they were completing some kind of a job. Then they were forced to dig a ditch and were killed. That is how the ghettos were rid of people who were ready and able to resist. This included former Communist Party of Belarus

Communist Party of Belarus

The Communist Party of Belarus is a political party in Belarus, that supports the government of president Alexander Lukashenko. It was created in 1996. The leader of the party is Tatsyana Holubeva....

, Soviet and Komsomol

Komsomol

The Communist Union of Youth , usually known as Komsomol , was the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban centers in 1918. During the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Communist Union of...

workers, or simply healthy men, and sometimes women. The active part of the ghetto was not large - young men of military age mostly were already in the Soviet Army

Soviet Army

The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...

. The Germans carried out the first killings by exerting force, using experienced guards and all necessary precautions (in Homel, Mozyrz, Kalinkowicze, Korma). The Belarusian police took on a secondary role in the first stage of the killings. The rest of the Jews were crushed and deprived of the will to live - women, children, and the elderly - was killed with the Nazis’ bare hands (in Dobrush, Chechersk, Żytkowicze). After a while, police, composed of locals, and a minimal convoy, led these remaining Jews out of the ghetto to their place of death. Such a tactic was successful (without much exertion of force) in places where the liquidation of Jews was carried out early September, October–November 1941. In winter 1942, a different tactic of killing was used - raids (in Zhlobin

Zhlobin

Zhlobin is a city in the Homiel Voblast of Belarus, on the Dnieper river. As of 2005, the population is 75.866. The town was first mentioned in writing in 1492....

, Petryków, Streshin, Chechersk). The role of Belarusian Auxiliary Police

Belarusian Auxiliary Police

Belarusian Auxiliary Police, later renamed Ordnungsdienst , was established in July 1941. It was staffed by local inhabitants and had similar functions to those of the Ordnungspolizei - OrPo - German Police. The OD activities were supervised by defense police departments, local commandant's...

in killing Jews became particularly noticeable during the second wave of destruction, starting in February–March 1942. By that time, it had been converted into a more organized force, while the Germans, experienced a greater need for a personal cadre of executioners, as more people were needed at the Eastern Front

Eastern Front (World War II)

The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...

. During the process of an action, local police forced Jews out of their homes, convoyed them to a specific place, surrounded them with guns, and pulled the triggers. After the mass shooting, the police actively searched for the hiding Jews and were distinctive in their cruelty, compared to the Germans.

30,000 Jews were murdered over the three days in Minsk ghetto in July, 1942, and tens of thousands more were killed at other times, even as more Jews were forced into the ghetto. Only a handful survived. Minsk was re-taken by the Soviet troops on July 3, 1944 during the Operation Bagration. Altogether, 2,230,000 people were killed in Belarus during the three years of German occupation. Some recent estimates raise the number of Belarusians who perished in War to "3 million 650 thousand people, unlike the former 2.2 million. That is to say not every fourth inhabitant but almost 40% of the pre-war Belarusian population perished (considering the present-day borders of Belarus)." Almost the whole, previously very numerous, Jewish population of Belarus

History of the Jews in Belarus

which did not evacuate was killed. One of the first uprisings of a Jewish ghetto against the Nazis occurred in 1942 in Belarus, in the small town of Łachwa

Lakhva

Lakhva is a small town in southern Belarus, with a population of approximately 2100. Lakhva is considered to have been the location of one of the first, and possibly the first, Jewish ghetto uprisings of the Second World War.-Geography:Lakhva is located in the Luninets district of the Brest...

(see Lakhva Ghetto). In July 1941, in the wake of the German occupation of the western parts of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, Wilhelm Kube

Wilhelm Kube

Wilhelm Kube was a German politician and Nazi official. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the occupying government of the Soviet Union, achieving the rank of Generalkommissar for...

was appointed General-Commissar for Generalbezirk Weißruthenien (Belarus), with his headquarters in Minsk

Minsk

.

In this role he oversaw the extermination of the large Jewish population of this area. The historian Martin Gilbert

Martin Gilbert

Sir Martin John Gilbert, CBE, PC is a British historian and Fellow of Merton College, University of Oxford. He is the author of over eighty books, including works on the Holocaust and Jewish history...

records that Kube participated in an atrocity on March 2, 1942 in the Minsk ghetto

Ghettos in occupied Europe 1939-1944

During World War II, ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe were set up by the Third Reich in order to confine Jews and sometimes Gypsies into tightly packed areas of the cities...

. During a search of the ghetto by German and Russian policemen a group of children were seized and thrown into pits of deep sand to die. "At that moment, several SS officers, among them Wilhelm Kube, arrived, whereupon Kube, immaculate in his uniform, threw handfuls of sweets to the shrieking children. All the children perished in the sand." On 22 September 1943, Kube was assassinated in his Minsk apartment. His death was caused by a bomb hidden in a hot water bottle, which was placed in his bed by a maid, Jelena Mazanik. In retaliation, the SS killed more than 1,000 male citizens of Minsk, though SS leader Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

reportedly said the assassination was a "blessing" since Kube did not support some of the harsh measures mandated by the SS. Mazanik escaped the reprisals and joined the partisans. SS and Police Leader

SS and Police Leader

SS and Police Leader was a title for senior Nazi officials that commanded large units of the SS, of Gestapo and of the regular German police during and prior to World War II.Three levels of subordination were established for bearers of this title:...

Curt von Gottberg

Curt von Gottberg was a Nazi official and military commander. Beginning in October 1942, within a few years he had personally combined the highest civil and military powers in occupied Belarus: from March 1943 as representative of the HSSPF for central Russia, and from October 1943 as the acting...

was successively promoted as the head of SS and police for Belarus between October 1942 and June 1944 due to Himmler's sponsorship. He was delegated with the duties of the Generalkommissar for Belarus on October 27, 1943 after Wilhelm Kube

Wilhelm Kube

was killed by a bomb in Minsk

Minsk

on October 23. Von Gottberg developed a new 'strategy' in the fight against partisans

Soviet partisans

The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....

on the occupied territory of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, mounting aggressive operations against suspected 'partisan bases' (generally ordinary villages; Gottberg's strategy seems to have largely involved terrorising the civilian population). Whole regions were classified as "bandit territory" : residents were expelled or murdered and dwellings destroyed. Gottberg said in an order "In the evacuated areas all people are in future fair game". Another order of Gottberg's of December 7, 1942, stated: "Each bandit, Jew, gypsy, is to be regarded as an enemy". After his first operation, Nürnberg, Gottberg reported on December 5, 1942: "Enemy dead: 799 bandits, over 300 suspected gangsters and over 1800 Jews [...] Our losses: 2 dead and 10 wounded. One must have luck".

Belorussian collaborators participated in various massacres of Belarusian villagers. Many of these collaborators retreated with German forces in the wake of the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

advance, and in January 1945, formed the 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Belarussian).

Mass murders in Nowogródek

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

invaded Belarusian SSR and Nowogródek was occupied on July 4. The Red Army

Red Army

was surrounded, what is known as the Nowogródek Cauldron. Prior to the war, the population

Population

A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

was 20,000, of which about half were Jewish. During a series of actions, the Germans killed all but 550 of the approximately 10,000 Jews. Those not killed were sent into slave labor. During the German occupation the city became part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland

Reichskommissariat Ostland

Reichskommissariat Ostland, literally "Reich Commissariat Eastland", was the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany in the Baltic states and much of Belarus during World War II. It was also known as Reichskommissariat Baltenland initially...

. Partisan resistance immediately began, with most famous Bielski partisans

Bielski partisans

The Bielski partisans were an organisation of Jewish partisans who rescued Jews from extermination and fought against the Nazi German occupiers and their collaborators in the vicinity of Nowogródek and Lida in German-occupied Poland...

formed of Jewish volunteers operated in the region. On July 31, 1943, without warning or provocation, 11 of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth

Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth

The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth are a Roman Catholic religious order which was founded in Rome in 1875 by Blessed Mary of Jesus the Good Shepherd . The Sisters of the Holy Family are an apostolic, international congregation, located on four continents and in thirteen countries. There are...

were imprisoned, loaded into a van and driven beyond the town limits. The 11 nuns were killed on August 1, 1943, in the woods 5 km (3.1 mi) beyond Nowogródek, and buried in a mass grave. After the execution, Sister M. Malgorzata Banas, the community's sole surviving member, located the place of the martyrdom, and remained the guardian of their common grave until her own death in 1966. The Church of the Transfiguration, known as Biała Fara, or "White Church", now contains the relics of the eleven martyrs.

The Red Army

Red Army

liberated the city almost exactly 3 years after its occupation on July 8, 1944. During the war more than 45,000 people were killed in the city and in the surrounding area, and over 60% of buildings was destroyed.

Anti-partisan operations

The cruelty during anti-partisan operations especially in Belarus has been correctly pointed out in the past. It indicates a high degree of identification with their deeds rather than an unwilling execution. The meanness of their actions is already shown by the means of killing massively employed by the Germans in their fight against partisans

Partisan (military)

A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...

. Most of the victims were women and children, as the male population of the villages had been evacuated or drafted into the Red Army

Red Army

or was with the partisans. Or then they were useful as a labor force. Similar aspects also apply to the murder of Jews, prisoners of war, political opponents and the ill.

The Battalion Dirlewanger on July 21, 1943, during Operation Hermann, chased the inhabitants of the village of Dory

Dory

The dory is a small, shallow-draft boat, about long. It is a lightweight and versatile boat with high sides, a flat bottom and sharp bows. They are easy to build because of their simple lines. For centuries, dories have been used as traditional fishing boats, both in coastal waters and in the...

together with the priest into a church and burned them alive there. Only men able to work were let out of the church, women only if they left their children behind. At another place hundreds of selected children, two to ten years old, were locked in freight cars and left to their fate until half of them had died.
While von Schenkendorff in 1942 called for measures against the soldiers, the generally organized sequence of the destruction of villages shows how little was left to chance.

Photo albums prepared after anti-partisan actions for higher SS commanders. Thus Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski readily admitted to have possessed thousands of color photographs of the fight against partisans that were confiscated after the war. After Operation Hermann in the summer of 1943 Curt von Gottberg

Curt von Gottberg

required appropriate pictures for an album about partisan fighting to be handed to Himmler. Some months later he was sent an album about that murderous operation Heinrich, which Bach-Zelewski had dedicated to Himmler by naming it after him. The rank and file behaved in a similar manner. Many German participants had a camera in their backpack during the operations. The respective pictures mostly show rather uncompromising scenes, but often also the burning villages.

Another aspect was the fact that inhabitants of the countryside were used for de-mining the accesses to the partisan camps and massively forced to walk the ways leading there. Several thousand Belarusians

Belarusians

were killed due to this. Such cases there were at first in the Wehrmacht

Wehrmacht

area already in 1942, at the remote village of Uchwała, raion Krupki

Krupki

Krupki is a small, rural town in Krupki Raion, near the cities of Minsk and Mogilev in Belarus.-History before 1914:It was founded in 1067 and existed during both the medieval Kingdom of Poland and of the great Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Krupki was then absorbed in to the Grand Duchy of...

, where a total of 360 people perished. In the area of the 286th Security Division

286th Security Division (Germany)

The 286th Security Division was a German military formation which fought in World War II.-History and organisation:The 286th Security Division was formed on 15 March 1941 around elements of the 213th Infantry Division...

the civilian population had to walk, plough and harrow the roads at the orders of Major General

Major General

Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...

Richert since the autumn of 1942. At Artiszewo near Orsza 28 people, thereof 18 children, were killed in this. The LIX Army Corps had issued a corresponding order already on March 2, 1942

Later they also used herds of sheep. But in most cases people were used, on an ever larger scale. During Operation Cottbus

Operation Cottbus

Operation Cottbus was an anti-partisan operation during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany. The operation began on May 20, 1943 during the World War II occupation of northern Belarus in the areas of Begoml, Lepel and Ushachy...

between 2,000 and 3,000 Belarusians whom the Germans drove before them into the swamps were torn apart by mines, according to Bach-Zelewski. After preparation by artillery and flak entering the swamp area was only possible by chasing inhabitants of the region across the heavily mined paths in the swamp. Oskar Dirlewanger

Oskar Dirlewanger

Oskar Paul Dirlewanger was a World War II officer of the SS who commanded the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, a penal battalion composed of German criminals...

's corresponding order of May 25, 1943 had read:

Roadblocks and artificial obstacles are almost always mined. So far we have suffered 1 dead and 4 wounded during removal. Thus the order is: Never remove obstacles yourselves, but always let natives do it. The blood thus saved justifies the loss of time.

For Operation Hermann this directive applied right from the beginning:

In order to avoid own casualties through mines it is convenient to have panje carts going in front along the road or to use auxiliary mine clearing devices.

The commanders of the operation carried out these instructions. The same happened during Operation Frühlingsfest, which was carried out in equal parts by Wehrmacht and SS units. A corresponding suggestion is said to have come from the already mentioned Richert. But in the meantime this method had become routine also outside the scope of major actions. It was also applied by Wehrmacht frontline troops in their direct rear area. All Belarusians had become hostages of the Germans. The 78th Infantry division ordered the whole civilian population in its area to de-mine the roads in its area every morning until 6 hours:

I thus order that all roads that must be driven on by German troops are to be walked first by all inhabitants of the location (including women and children) with cows, horses and vehicles up to the next command post, or that marching columns must be preceded at a distance of at least 150 meters by such inhabitants. The civilians must close up tightly and walk the whole width of the road.

Rear area command 532 proceeded in a similar manner, and an officer in the high command of Army Group Center wanted to recommend this procedure as exemplary to other units. As of February 18, 1944, General Commissar v. Gottberg issued a Directive for the Securing of Traffic Roads in White Ruthenia against Bandits and Mines. Therein the whole population of villages in White Ruthenia was obliged to de-mine streets and roads every day at the regional police commanders instructions. Whoever refused the de-mining and road supervision service was to be punished by death.

Massacres

Antopol http://www.stevemorse.org/bereza-and-antopol/ant-hist0.htm
Berezyna
Berazino
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Chatyń
Khatyn massacre
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Czausy
Chavusy
Chaussy, Chavusy or Chausy is a district town in the eastern Belarusian voblast of Mahilyow.It once was a substantial Jewish shtetl, which dated from the 17th century, as appears from a charter granted to the Jews January 11, 1667, by Michael Casimir Pacz, castellan of Vilna, and confirmed by King...
Dawidgródek
Davyd-Haradok
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http://davidhorodok.netfirms.com/
Grodno
Hrodna
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Iwie
Łachwa
Lakhva
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Lida
Lida
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Liubawiczi
Lyubavichi
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Łuniniec
Luniniec
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Mały Traścianiec
Maly Trostenets extermination camp
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Mińsk
Minsk
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Motol
Nowogródek
Blessed Martyrs of Nowogródek
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Obecz
Obech, Belarus
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Pińsk
Pinsk
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Połock
Ponary
Ponary massacre
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Słonim
Slonim
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Słuck
Sluzk Affair
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Szkłów
Shklou
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Witebsk
Vitebsk Ghetto
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Zdzięcioł
Dzyatlava massacre
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Zdzięcioł
Zhetel ghetto
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External links

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German invasion

Methods of carrying out actions

Mass murders in Nowogródek

Anti-partisan operations

Massacres

See also

External links