Maly Trostenets extermination camp
Encyclopedia
Maly Trastsianiets extermination camp (see alternate spellings), located near a small village on the outskirts of Minsk
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...
, Belarus, was the site of a Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
extermination camp.
History
Originally built in the summer of 1941, on the site of a Soviet kolkhozKolkhoz
A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...
, as a concentration camp, to house Soviet prisoners of war who had been captured following the German attack on 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....
which commenced on June 22 of that year; (it was known as 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...
). The camp became a Vernichtungslager, or extermination camp, on May 10, 1942 when the first consignment of Jews arrived. While many Jews from Germany, Austria and the present-day Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
met their deaths there, (in most cases almost immediately upon their arrival, by being trucked to the nearby Blagovshchina (Благовщина) and Shashkovka (Шашковка) forests killing grounds and shot in the back of the neck), the primary purpose of the camp was the extermination of the substantial Jewish community of Minsk and the surrounding area. Mobile gas chambers deployed here performed a subsidiary if not insignificant function in the genocidal process.
On June 28, 1944, as 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...
approached the region, the Nazis blew the camp up in an attempt to obliterate evidence of its existence, conforming with the aims of the so‑called Aktion 1005
Sonderaktion 1005
The Sonderaktion 1005, also called Aktion 1005, or Enterdungsaktion was conducted during World War II to hide any evidence that millions of people had been murdered by Nazi Germany in Aktion Reinhard in occupied Poland....
. But the Soviets are said to have discovered 34 grave‑pits, some (not all) measuring as much as 50 meters in length and three to four meters in depth, located in the Blagovshchina Forest some 500 meters from the Minsk–Mogilev
Mogilev
Mogilev is a city in eastern Belarus, about 76 km from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and 105 km from the border with Russia's Bryansk Oblast. It has more than 367,788 inhabitants...
highway, at about the 11th‑kilometer mark (according to the special report prepared by the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission
Extraordinary State Commission
The Extraordinary State Commission – fully: "Extraordinary State Commission for ascertaining and investigating crimes perpetrated by the German–Fascist invaders and their accomplices, and the damage inflicted by them on citizens, collective farms, social organisations, State enterprises and...
in the 1940s). Only two jewish prisoners managed to survive Maly trostenets. However, only one of them survived the war, but his identety is unkown and he never gave testemony. Original estimates of the number of people killed there ranged from 200,000 to more than half a million. Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
currently estimates the number as 65,000 Jews Signage on the site indicates 206,000 were murdered there.
Today
The site is scheduled for reconstruction and development. Currently nothing remains of the camp other than a row of poplars planted by the inmates as part of the border of the camp.A memorial, built at the site of the camp, attracts thousands of visitors annually, especially since the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
has eased travel restrictions.
Victims of the camp
- Vincent HadleŭskiVincent HadleuskiVincent Hadleŭski was a Belarusian Roman Catholic priest, publicist and politician.Born in the village Shchury near Vaukavysk, he graduated from a Catholic seminary in Vilna and the Catholic academy in St.Petersburg...
[Wincenty Gadlewski], Roman Catholic priest and Belarusian nationalist resistance fighter (b. 1888), arrested in Minsk on December 24, 1942 and shot at Trascianiec the same day. - Norbert JoklNorbert JoklNorbert Jokl was an Austrian Albanologist of Jewish descent who has been called the father of Albanology.- Early life :...
(debated) - Margarete HilferdingMargarete HilferdingMargarete Hilferding, born Hönigsberg was an Austrian Jewish female teacher, doctor, individual psychologist.Hilferding was the first woman admitted into the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.- Literature :* Margarete...
(in transit to the camp from Terezín) - Grete ForstGrete ForstGrete Forst was an Austrian soprano.Born Margarete Feiglstock in Vienna, Forst made her operatic debut in Cologne in 1900 in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor Three years later, made her Vienna State Opera debut in the same role and was made a member of the company by Gustav Mahler...
Name
In BelarusianBelarusian language
The Belarusian language , sometimes referred to as White Russian or White Ruthenian, is the language of the Belarusian people...
the name is Малы Трасцянец (maˈlɨ trasʲtsʲaˈnʲets), transliterated
BGN/PCGN romanization of Belarusian
The BGN/PCGN romanization system for Belarusian is a method for romanization of Cyrillic Belarusian texts, that is, their transliteration into the Latin alphabet....
as Maly Tras’tsyanyets; in Russian it is Малый Тростенец. Alternative romanizations and the place-name’s German variants include Maly Trostinets, Maly Trostinez, Maly Trostenez, and Klein Trostenez – literally, ‘Small’ Tras’tsyanyets) in contradistinction to the neighboring locality named Вялікі Трасьцянец or ‘Large’ Tras’tsyanyets)
See also
- List of Nazi-German concentration camps
- Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and EugenicsKaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and EugenicsThe Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics was founded in 1927. The Rockefeller Foundation supported both the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Psychiatry and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics...
- Research Materials: Max Planck Society ArchiveResearch Materials: Max Planck Society ArchiveAt the end of World War II, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society was renamed the Max Planck Society, and the institutes associated with the Kaiser Wilhelm Society were renamed "Max Planck" institutes. The records that were archived under the former Kaiser Wilhelm Society and its institutes were placed in the...
- Shark Island, German South West Africa
External Links
- The Invasion of the Soviet Union and the Beginnings of Mass Murder on the Yad VashemYad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
website - Marking 70 Years to Operation Barbarossa on the Yad VashemYad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
website