Zhetel ghetto
Encyclopedia
The Zdzięcioł Ghetto, Dzyatlava Ghetto or Zhetel Ghetto (in Yiddish) was a Jewish ghetto established by Nazi Germany
in the town of Zdzięcioł in the occupied eastern part of the Republic of Poland (now Dziatłava
, Belarus
) during Holocaust in World War II
. The Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland
on September 17, 1939, and stationed in the Voivodeship area until the outbreak of their own war with Germany
in June 1941. After their rapid retreat, and several months of Nazi persecution, on February 22, 1942 the new German authorities officially created a ghetto for all local Jews.
in 1580. The town was the birthplace of preachers Jacob of Dubno
and Yisrael Meir Kagan
. In 1897, three-quarters of the city's total population of 3,979 were Jewish. In 1926, in the reborn Polish Republic
, there were 3,450 Jews out of 4,600 people in Zdzieciol (also 75 percent). In 1939–1941 many Jewish refugees arrived in town from western and central Poland which was attacked by Germany in the beginning of World War II. By the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union
in June 1941, the Jewish population of Zdzięcioł (Dziatłava) had increased to more than 4,500.
on the front and back of their clothing. On July 23, about 120 of the most respected citizens and members of the Jewish intelligentsia were selected from among the Jews and assembled in the square. The selection was carried out according to a list compiled by the SS Einsatzkommando
killing squad arriving in Zdzięcioł. Among those arrested were Alter Dvoretsky (an attorney active in the Communist Poale Zion
), the rabbi, and Jankel Kaplan. The local Jews bribed the Germans to attain the release of Dvoretsky and the rabbi. All the others were allegedly taken away for forced labor, but two days later it was discovered that they had been transported to the forest near the military barracks in Nowogródek and murdered there.
At the end of August 1941, Zdzięcioł was transferred to civil administration and became part of the Nowogródek district (Gebietskommissariat). At this time the Judenrat
was formed. Among its members were Alter Dvoretsky, Hirshl Benyamovitz, Jehuda Luski, Moshe Mendel Leizerovitz, Eli Novolenski, Dovid Senderovski, Faivel Epstein, Shaul Kaplinski, Rabbi Jitzhok Reicer and Berl Rabinovitz. Shmuel Kustin became the chairman of the Judenrat and Dvoretsky was the deputy chairman. Soon afterwards Dvoretsky replaced Kustin as head of the Judenrat. He was 37 and had obtained his education as a lawyer in Berlin and Warsaw.
One of the main tasks of the Judenrat was to ensure that the German orders were strictly carried out. On the second day of the holiday of Sukkot, some Germans arrived in the town to requisition horses for the army. Many of the Jews had decided to hide, but the Germans caught one – Ya’akov Noa – and shot him without warning. On November 28, 1941, the Jews of Zdzięcioł were made to line up, and forced to surrender all their valuables. Libe Gercowski, accused of having hidden two gold rings, was shot in front of everyone. On that day the Judenrat was also obliged to select four glaziers and fifteen carpenters who were sent to an unknown destination. On December 15, 1941, some 400 men were sent to the labor camp in Dworzec to work on the construction of an aerodrome. This work was supervised by the Nazi Organisation Todt
.
building. There was no detailed plan for the relocation. Between five and six families were forced to share houses vacated by non-Jews and many families had to split up. Eight or more people were put into each room, from which the furniture had been removed to be replaced by improvised bunk beds. Some of the families, like the Kaplans, prepared secret hiding places in the Ghetto, which helped them survive the later massacre.
The ghetto was partly fenced by wood and barbed wire, and two local policemen guarded the gate. The Jews were not permitted to talk to other citizens and warned that they might be shot if they attempted to obtain food from the outside. Nevertheless, peasants still brought food to the ghetto and sold it for gold, clothes, and other necessities. Special work permits were issued to those who performed forced labor outside the ghetto. The Jews were guarded when marched out of the ghetto in columns.
operatives, who were in the process of organizing Soviet partisan force
in the area. His group was divided into twenty cells, each consisting of three men. They also obtained some weapons a month before the ghetto was established. About ten members of the underground joined the Jewish police
.
Upon moving into the ghetto the underground group headed by Dvoretsky had the following aims: first, to prepare an armed revolt in the event that the ghetto was going to be liquidated; second, to collect money to buy weapons and bring them into the ghetto; and third, to convince the non-Jewish population not to cooperate with the Germans. The group made contact with the leader of the Soviet partisans in the area, Nikolai Vakhonin. On April 20, 1942, Dvoretsky and six members of the ghetto underground were forced to escape to the forest after their organization became known to the Germans. Shortly afterwards Dvoretsky was killed in an ambush. A number of other Jews were hiding in the dense Lipiczansky forest (Las Lipiczański) after fleeing from Zdzięcioł as well as from Żołudek (Zheludok in Russian), Belica (Belitsa), Kozlowszczyna, Dworzec and Nowogródek. Their leaders were Pinya Green and Hirshel Kaplinski.
The unit’s base was some twenty kilometers away from Zdzięcioł in the Lipiczański (Lipichanski) forest. They accepted Jews from around Nowogródek, and coordinated all their activities with the Soviet partisans operating in the area, in particular with the Orlanski ("Borba") detachment under Nikolai Vakhonin, as well as, with the Lenin Brigade. The Lenin Brigade was subordinate to the Baranowicze Branch of the General Staff of the Soviet Partisan Movement of Belorussia under Soviet Major General Vasilii Chernyshev (Chernyshov), known as "Platon". "Platon" commanded more Soviet units locally including the Kirov Brigade under Sinichkin (and later, Vassiliev), who in turn gave orders to Bielski partisans
. Tuvia Bielski said later about the Polish farmers: "Without them, we would not have survived the early times." The Soviets attacked the railroad tracks on the Lida-Baranowicze, Baranowicze-Minsk and Wolkowysk-Bialystok lines. Later, on January 29, 1944, they also committed the massacre of the civilian population of Koniuchy
near Wilno.
About 1,200 of those sent to the right were marched along the streets to the Kurpiasz (Kurpyash) Forest on the southern edge of town, where some pits had been dug out in advance. There the Germans shot them in groups of twenty. During the course of the shooting the German district commissar appeared and released those who had a certificate stating their profession as well as their families. Thus about one hundred returned to the ghetto. The massacre was conducted by the German and local Belarusian Auxiliary Police
forces.
The second massacre started on August 6, 1942, and lasted for three days. Many Jews hid in prepared . During the course of the final liquidation of the ghetto some 2,000–3,000 Jews were executed into three mass graves in the Jewish cemetery on the southern outskirts of Zdzięcioł, roughly 1,000 people in each. Just over 200 Jewish craftsmen were transferred to the ghetto in Nowogródek. This was the end of the ghetto and the end of the Jewish community of Zdzieciol. Several hundred Jews including the Kaplan family, who had hidden, fled once the massacre was over, some forming a family camp in the Nakryshki forest, where they managed to survive until the liberation. Among the known victims of the 1942 massacre were the members of Tinkovitzki family including Riva Tinkovitzkaya (Tinkowicka?, born in 1909), Zelik Tinkovitzkaya (born in 1912) and Estera Tinkovitzkaya (born in 1871).
, hid five Jews for over a year on their farm.
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...
in the town of Zdzięcioł in the occupied eastern part of the Republic of Poland (now Dziatłava
Dziatłava
Dzyatlava is a town in Belarus in the Hrodna voblast, about 165 km southeast of Hrodna. It is a railway station on the line between Baranavičy and Lida. The population is 8,900 ....
, 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 ,...
) during Holocaust in 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...
. The Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland
Soviet invasion of Poland
Soviet invasion of Poland can refer to:* the second phase of the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 when Soviet armies marched on Warsaw, Poland* Soviet invasion of Poland of 1939 when Soviet Union allied with Nazi Germany attacked Second Polish Republic...
on September 17, 1939, and stationed in the Voivodeship area until the outbreak of their own war with Germany
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...
in June 1941. After their rapid retreat, and several months of Nazi persecution, on February 22, 1942 the new German authorities officially created a ghetto for all local Jews.
Town's Jewish history
The first Jews settled in ZdzięciołDziatłava
Dzyatlava is a town in Belarus in the Hrodna voblast, about 165 km southeast of Hrodna. It is a railway station on the line between Baranavičy and Lida. The population is 8,900 ....
in 1580. The town was the birthplace of preachers Jacob of Dubno
Jacob ben Wolf Kranz
Jacob ben Wolf Kranz of Dubno , the Dubner Maggid , was a Lithuania -born preacher . - First I Shoot the Arrow :...
and Yisrael Meir Kagan
Yisrael Meir Kagan
Yisrael Meir Poupko , known popularly as The Chofetz Chaim, was an influential Eastern European rabbi, Halakhist, posek, and ethicist whose works continue to be widely influential in Jewish life...
. In 1897, three-quarters of the city's total population of 3,979 were Jewish. In 1926, in the reborn Polish Republic
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
, there were 3,450 Jews out of 4,600 people in Zdzieciol (also 75 percent). In 1939–1941 many Jewish refugees arrived in town from western and central Poland which was attacked by Germany in the beginning of World War II. By the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union
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...
in June 1941, the Jewish population of Zdzięcioł (Dziatłava) had increased to more than 4,500.
German occupation (1941–1942)
German forces arrived in town on June 30, 1941. On July 14, 1941, the local military commandant ordered that the Jews had to wear yellow patchesYellow badge
The yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...
on the front and back of their clothing. On July 23, about 120 of the most respected citizens and members of the Jewish intelligentsia were selected from among the Jews and assembled in the square. The selection was carried out according to a list compiled by the SS Einsatzkommando
Einsatzkommando
During World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads—up to 3,000 men each—usually composed of 500-1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to kill Jews, Romani, communists and the NKVD collaborators in the captured...
killing squad arriving in Zdzięcioł. Among those arrested were Alter Dvoretsky (an attorney active in the Communist Poale Zion
Poale Zion
Poale Zion was a Movement of Marxist Zionist Jewish workers circles founded in various cities of the Russian Empire about the turn of the century after the Bund rejected Zionism in 1901.-Formation and early years:Poale Zion parties and organisations were started across the Jewish diaspora in the...
), the rabbi, and Jankel Kaplan. The local Jews bribed the Germans to attain the release of Dvoretsky and the rabbi. All the others were allegedly taken away for forced labor, but two days later it was discovered that they had been transported to the forest near the military barracks in Nowogródek and murdered there.
At the end of August 1941, Zdzięcioł was transferred to civil administration and became part of the Nowogródek district (Gebietskommissariat). At this time the Judenrat
Judenrat
Judenräte were administrative bodies during the Second World War that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union It is the overall term for the enforcement bodies established by the Nazi occupiers to...
was formed. Among its members were Alter Dvoretsky, Hirshl Benyamovitz, Jehuda Luski, Moshe Mendel Leizerovitz, Eli Novolenski, Dovid Senderovski, Faivel Epstein, Shaul Kaplinski, Rabbi Jitzhok Reicer and Berl Rabinovitz. Shmuel Kustin became the chairman of the Judenrat and Dvoretsky was the deputy chairman. Soon afterwards Dvoretsky replaced Kustin as head of the Judenrat. He was 37 and had obtained his education as a lawyer in Berlin and Warsaw.
One of the main tasks of the Judenrat was to ensure that the German orders were strictly carried out. On the second day of the holiday of Sukkot, some Germans arrived in the town to requisition horses for the army. Many of the Jews had decided to hide, but the Germans caught one – Ya’akov Noa – and shot him without warning. On November 28, 1941, the Jews of Zdzięcioł were made to line up, and forced to surrender all their valuables. Libe Gercowski, accused of having hidden two gold rings, was shot in front of everyone. On that day the Judenrat was also obliged to select four glaziers and fifteen carpenters who were sent to an unknown destination. On December 15, 1941, some 400 men were sent to the labor camp in Dworzec to work on the construction of an aerodrome. This work was supervised by the Nazi Organisation Todt
Organisation Todt
The Todt Organisation, was a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in Germany named after its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi figure...
.
Formation of the Ghetto
On February 22, 1942, the authorities put up posters on the walls announcing that all Jews had to move into the new ghetto, which was set up around the synagogue and the Talmud TorahTalmud Torah
Talmud Torah schools were created in the Jewish world, both Ashkenazic and Sephardic, as a form of public primary school for boys of modest backgrounds, where they were given an elementary education in Hebrew, the Scriptures , and the Talmud...
building. There was no detailed plan for the relocation. Between five and six families were forced to share houses vacated by non-Jews and many families had to split up. Eight or more people were put into each room, from which the furniture had been removed to be replaced by improvised bunk beds. Some of the families, like the Kaplans, prepared secret hiding places in the Ghetto, which helped them survive the later massacre.
The ghetto was partly fenced by wood and barbed wire, and two local policemen guarded the gate. The Jews were not permitted to talk to other citizens and warned that they might be shot if they attempted to obtain food from the outside. Nevertheless, peasants still brought food to the ghetto and sold it for gold, clothes, and other necessities. Special work permits were issued to those who performed forced labor outside the ghetto. The Jews were guarded when marched out of the ghetto in columns.
Resistance in Zhetel
In the fall of 1941, before the ghetto was set up, Alter Dvoretsky formed a Jewish underground organization in the town, consisting of about sixty people. Dvoretsky established links with the Jews living in the surrounding villages and also with a group of Red ArmyRed 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...
operatives, who were in the process of organizing Soviet partisan force
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....
in the area. His group was divided into twenty cells, each consisting of three men. They also obtained some weapons a month before the ghetto was established. About ten members of the underground joined the Jewish police
Jewish Ghetto Police
Jewish Ghetto Police , also known as the Jewish Police Service and referred to by the Jews as the Jewish Police, were the auxiliary police units organized in the Jewish ghettos of Europe by local Judenrat councils under orders of occupying German Nazis.Members of the did not have official...
.
Upon moving into the ghetto the underground group headed by Dvoretsky had the following aims: first, to prepare an armed revolt in the event that the ghetto was going to be liquidated; second, to collect money to buy weapons and bring them into the ghetto; and third, to convince the non-Jewish population not to cooperate with the Germans. The group made contact with the leader of the Soviet partisans in the area, Nikolai Vakhonin. On April 20, 1942, Dvoretsky and six members of the ghetto underground were forced to escape to the forest after their organization became known to the Germans. Shortly afterwards Dvoretsky was killed in an ambush. A number of other Jews were hiding in the dense Lipiczansky forest (Las Lipiczański) after fleeing from Zdzięcioł as well as from Żołudek (Zheludok in Russian), Belica (Belitsa), Kozlowszczyna, Dworzec and Nowogródek. Their leaders were Pinya Green and Hirshel Kaplinski.
Partisan resistance activities
After a while a partisan detachment consisting of more than one hundred Jews was formed in the forest near Zdzięcioł. It was called the "Zhetler Battalion." Everybody who wanted to join in had first to obtain a gun. The unit was divided into three platoons headed by Hershl Kaplinsky (Israel Kaplinski), Jonah Midvetsky, and Shalom Ogulnik respectively. The staff of the headquarters included two other members, Pinya Green and Shalom Gerling. There were also some women in the battalion, acting as nurses, cooks, secretaries, typists and washerwomen. A few of them also took part in combat activities.The unit’s base was some twenty kilometers away from Zdzięcioł in the Lipiczański (Lipichanski) forest. They accepted Jews from around Nowogródek, and coordinated all their activities with the Soviet partisans operating in the area, in particular with the Orlanski ("Borba") detachment under Nikolai Vakhonin, as well as, with the Lenin Brigade. The Lenin Brigade was subordinate to the Baranowicze Branch of the General Staff of the Soviet Partisan Movement of Belorussia under Soviet Major General Vasilii Chernyshev (Chernyshov), known as "Platon". "Platon" commanded more Soviet units locally including the Kirov Brigade under Sinichkin (and later, Vassiliev), who in turn gave orders to 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...
. Tuvia Bielski said later about the Polish farmers: "Without them, we would not have survived the early times." The Soviets attacked the railroad tracks on the Lida-Baranowicze, Baranowicze-Minsk and Wolkowysk-Bialystok lines. Later, on January 29, 1944, they also committed the massacre of the civilian population of Koniuchy
Koniuchy massacre
The Koniuchy massacre was a massacre of civilians carried out by a Soviet partisan unit along with a contingent of Jewish partisans under their command during the Second World War in the Polish village of Koniuchy on January 29, 1944.-Massacre:A small local self defence unit was created to defend...
near Wilno.
Even though none of the residents of Koniuchy were able to identify by name the partisans who destroyed their village in January 1944, the participation of many Jewish assailants is undisputable. — Mark PaulYisrael Bousel invented a fast new sort of mine, which the Soviet partisans successfully used to derail German trains. He was posthumously awarded the honorary title of "Hero of the Soviet Union."
Liquidation of Zhetel Ghetto
On April 29, 1942, the Germans arrested the Judenrat. At dawn on April 30, the ghetto inmates were woken by shots inside the ghetto. The Germans announced through the Judenrat that all the Jews were to go to the old cemetery, which was situated within the ghetto boundaries. At the same time the Germans and their collaborators began to drive the Jews out of their houses, beating, kicking, and shooting those who were reluctant to obey. A selection was then carried out: women, children, and the old were sent to the left, the young skilled workers to the right.About 1,200 of those sent to the right were marched along the streets to the Kurpiasz (Kurpyash) Forest on the southern edge of town, where some pits had been dug out in advance. There the Germans shot them in groups of twenty. During the course of the shooting the German district commissar appeared and released those who had a certificate stating their profession as well as their families. Thus about one hundred returned to the ghetto. The massacre was conducted by the German and local 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...
forces.
The second massacre started on August 6, 1942, and lasted for three days. Many Jews hid in prepared . During the course of the final liquidation of the ghetto some 2,000–3,000 Jews were executed into three mass graves in the Jewish cemetery on the southern outskirts of Zdzięcioł, roughly 1,000 people in each. Just over 200 Jewish craftsmen were transferred to the ghetto in Nowogródek. This was the end of the ghetto and the end of the Jewish community of Zdzieciol. Several hundred Jews including the Kaplan family, who had hidden, fled once the massacre was over, some forming a family camp in the Nakryshki forest, where they managed to survive until the liberation. Among the known victims of the 1942 massacre were the members of Tinkovitzki family including Riva Tinkovitzkaya (Tinkowicka?, born in 1909), Zelik Tinkovitzkaya (born in 1912) and Estera Tinkovitzkaya (born in 1871).
Aftermath
Word spread about the "Zhetel partisan detachment" among Jews in the labor camps of Dworzec and Nowogródek. A number of Jews escaped and tried to join them. Many of these were then caught on the way to the forest and handed over to the Germans by the locals. The "Zhetler detachment" in turn exacted revenge on such collaboration. One act of revenge-killing took place in the village of Molery on September 10, 1942. After eliminating two collaborators, the Jewish partisans also informed the elder of the village and the local villagers about the precise reasons why they carried out this reprisal. Tuvia Bielski related a much larger number of bloody revenge killings of Bielorussian families whose farms were later burned down. However, "the fact that there are hundreds of survivors would indicate – wrote Yehuda Bauer – that there were a fairly large number of people willing to engage in rescue" of Jews also. For example, a Polish couple Jan and Józefa Jarmolowicz (Jarmolowitz), later awarded titles of Righteous among the NationsPolish Righteous among the Nations
Polish citizens have the world's highest count of individuals awarded medals of Righteous among the Nations, given by the State of Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews from extermination during the Holocaust...
, hid five Jews for over a year on their farm.
Timeline
- Pre-1939: Zdzięcioł (Zhetel - Yiddish), town in the Nowogródek province, Poland
- 1939-41: Dyatlovo, Belorussian SSR (following Soviet staged electionsElections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western BelarusElections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which took place on October 22, 1939, were an attempt to legitimate territorial gains of the Soviet Union, at the expense of the Second Polish Republic...
) - 1941-44: Djatlowo, Rayon center, Gebiet Nowogrodek, Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien
- Post-1944: Dyatlovo, Grodno province, Belorussian SSR
- Since 1991: Republic of Belarus