Ivatsevichy Ghetto
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Ivatsevichy Ghetto | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | Ivatsevichy |
| Date | June 24, 1941 – August 8, 1942 |
Ivacevichi Ghetto (June 24, 1941 – August 8, 1942) 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.[1]
Before the war, the Jewish population of Ivacevichi had significantly increased due to the influx of refugees from areas of Poland occupied by the Germans in September 1939, and by the beginning of the occupation, it numbered about 300 people. Ivacevichi was captured by German forces on June 24, 1941.[2]
Jews were immediately ordered to sew large fabric marks in the form of yellow circles onto their clothing (on the back and chest).[2][3]
The Germans confiscated all the savings, household items, and tools from the Jews—equipment, sewing machines, horses, wagons, bicycles, and other property.[3]
Shortly after the occupation, the Germans, implementing the Nazi program of exterminating Jews, organized a ghetto in Ivacevichi, where Jews from nearby villages were also brought.
Conditions in the Ghetto
The ghetto was overcrowded and located in three separate areas including a small hotel on a street leading to the railway station, which ran parallel to the central street of Ivacevichi. The ghetto area was not surrounded by barbed wire.[2]
Prisoners were beaten daily and used for forced labor—construction, road laying, and loading and unloading work at the railway station. The food ration issued was minimal—200 grams of bread per day.[2] According to eyewitness accounts, local peasants came to the ghetto and urged: "Give us everything, you will be killed anyway..."[3] The blacksmiths, Aron Zuchowicki (Sara Rosjanski's brother) and his brother in-law Chaim Utschtein worked repairing German trucks and for local farmers in exchange for supplemental food.[4]
