Navahrudak Ghetto
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Navahrudak Ghetto | |
|---|---|
 Monument at Minsk Street to the victims of the Navahrudak Ghetto | |
| Location | Navahrudak, Reichskommissariat Ostland 53°35′N 25°49′E / 53.583°N 25.817°E |
| Date | December 1941–late 1943 |
| Incident type | Imprisonment, mass shootings, forced labour |
| Participants | Wehrmacht 36th Estonian Police Battalion Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalions |
| Victims | 10,000 |
The Navahrudak Ghetto was established in December 1941 in Navahrudak, in the Byelorussian SSR (present-day Belarus), during the Holocaust. Almost all of its residents were killed - only 350 survived, and 10,000 perished.
Prior to the outbreak of World War II, roughly 6,000 Jews lived in the city of Navahrudak, in what was then the Second Polish Republic.[1] Following the beginning of Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941, the city was occupied by Nazi Germany on 4 July. Immediately following the occupation's beginning, Jews were required to wear sewn Stars of David as identification.[1]
Immediately after the occupation's beginning, 100 Jews were taken into the street, where they were lined up and every other individual was executed. On 14 July 1941, 52 Jews were taken from the market square and executed in the city's Jewish cemetery.[1]
On 6 December 1941, the Jewish population of Navahrudak was ordered to assemble within the city's courthouse, where they were locked up overnight. The following morning, 500 Jews were taken from the courthouse to the nearby village of Skrydlevo, where they were subsequently executed.[1][2]
The surviving population was segregated that month into two separate ghettos of the city; one on Minsk Street and the other on Peresets Street, each surrounded by a wooden fence and barbed wire. The population of these ghettos then performed forced labour.[1] Over 8,000 Jews from the surrounding region were forced into the Peresets Street ghetto.[2]
Liquidation
The work of exterminating the ghetto's population began immediately; on 8 December 1941 alone, 2,990 Jews were killed.[2] Actions involving the massacres of Jews, as well, was not limited to the Wehrmacht: on 7 August 1942, the 36th Estonian Police Battalion also participated in killings,[3] and the 11th Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalion killed 3,000 of the ghetto's residents on 8 December 1941.[4]
On 7 May 1943, 300 people, mostly women and children, were shot to death. In July 1942, the Peresets Street ghetto was liquidated, and in autumn of 1943, the Minsk Street ghetto met the same fate.[5] From the Navahrudak Ghetto's establishment in December 1941 until the ultimate destruction of the Minsk Street ghetto, a total of 10,000 Jews were killed.[6] No more than 350 residents survived.[2]
