Lida ghetto

In the first half of the 20th century, in Lida, Jews accounted for 38% of the total population of the city ^[1] . Before the war, 5419 Jews lived in Lida ^[2] . The city was captured by parts of the Wehrmacht on June 27, 1941, and the occupation lasted 3 years - until 9 (8 ^[3] ) July 1944 ^{[4] [5] [6]} .

In the first months after the occupation, the Germans created a ghetto in the city ^[5] . The ghetto in Lida became one of the largest in the occupied territories of the USSR - along with the ghettos of Vilnius , Kaunas , Riga , Minsk and Šiauliai ^[7] .

The territory of the Lida ghetto occupied an entire city block - from the railway tracks in Molodechno in the north to the now-defunct Postovskaya street in the south; and from the Lidea River in the east to the present Soviet Street in the west. Jews were brought and driven from all over the Lida region - from Berezovka , Belitsa , Selets and other places ^[1] .

The executions of Jews began from the first days of the German occupation ^{[1] [8]} . The Germans were very serious about the possibility of Jewish resistance , and therefore, in the first place, Jewish men, aged 15 to 50, were killed in the ghetto or even before it was created, despite the economic inexpediency, as they were the most able-bodied prisoners ^[9] . Based on these considerations, on July 3 and 8, 1941, 275 Jews, representatives of the intelligentsia, were executed ^[8] . In the first months they were executed only in the city prison and at night to avoid witnesses. Later, when the scale of the repression increased, the killings were transferred to the former Soviet training ground near Lida ^{[2] [10]} .

Another massacre was organized in March 1942, when 50 Jews were killed in the courtyard of the prison, and 200 in their ghetto houses. All members of the Judenrat were also killed, and its composition was completely replaced ^[11] .

April 23, 1942 ^[1] . From the testimony of witnesses:

... there were five thousand Jews. They were ordered to dig trenches. Women had to dig a deep dale, and then the Nazis threw small children into it. Mothers resisted, bit, when babies were taken from them. They tried to rush after them into the pit. But the Germans did not allow any of the mothers there. Our guys ( policemen ) were ordered to throw grenades at these children ... Adults were ordered to strip naked, put their clothes on, and then our lads ( policemen ) shot these people. Those who were killed or injured were thrown into a pit and covered with lime. The Germans approached the policemen who shot, laid their hands on their hearts and, if someone was calm, praised, and if someone had a heartbeat, was excited - he received a bullet from their forehead. So they shot until the evening, then trenches fell asleep ...

- A.F. Kulesh. So they killed people ^[1]

On May 2, 1942, after torture, accompanied by fractures of the limbs, 9 famous Lidic Jews were shot ^{[5] [12]} .

A week later, on May 8, 1942, the most massacre of Jews was organized in Lida, which the Germans preferred to call "action" euphemism ^[2] .

According to witnesses, in the evening of May 7, the ghetto was surrounded by policemen and gendarmes , and in the morning of May 8 the prisoners were taken to the square near the barracks. The Gebitskomissar and his assistant carried out a "selection", separating doomed women, the elderly, sick and children from temporarily left alive specialists and artisans. Patients and the elderly, who could not walk around themselves, were killed immediately - in the houses and on the streets of the ghetto. On the way to the forest, to the place of the murder, the Jews were beaten, and the laggards were shot ^{[2] [13]} .

The places of mass executions were a field and a forest three kilometers from the city. The Nazis and collaborators shot the Lead Jews with machine guns and machine guns in three large pits, previously causing the victims to undress. The children were killed first - they were taken from their mothers, thrown into pits, and thrown grenades. The occupiers and their accomplices threw some of the children up and caught them with bayonets. Burials in the old trenches on the site of the former Soviet landfill and in a huge funnel from the explosion of the powder warehouse occupied an area of ​​6 hectares ^{[2] [14]} .

In total, on May 8, 1942, 5670 ghetto prisoners ^{[1] [2] [5] [8] [15]} were shot in Lida.

On July 2 (3 ^[16] ) (July 3 ^{[5] [17]} ) 1942 another 155 Jews, intellectuals ^{[2] [18],} were killed in the pits of the powder cellars.

In the fall of 1942, 3,000 of the remaining ghetto prisoners were taken to the Majdanek death camp in Poland. Instead of those shot in the ghetto, 800 Jews were transported from Voronovo and other villages. All of them and the surviving Jews of Lida were placed in 121 houses on the territory of the ghetto in order to kill soon too ^[1] .

More than 2,000 Jews from Lida were taken out and killed in the spring of 1943 near the village of Bora, northwest of the city ^[19] .

The Lida ghetto was finally liquidated in September (November ^[8] ) 1943, some of its prisoners were also sent to the Sobibor concentration camp ^[7] .

Since 1941, the Belsky brothers had made their way to the Lida ghetto, urging prisoners to escape in order to fight the Nazis. A large group of prisoners, who managed to escape from the ghetto in the spring and summer of 1943, entered their partisan detachment ^[20] . One of the brothers, Tuvya Belsky, told them:

“Friends, this is one of the happiest days in my life. It’s for the sake of such moments that I live - look how many people managed to get out of the ghetto! I can’t guarantee you anything. We are trying to survive, but we can all die. And we will try to save as many lives as possible. We accept everyone and refuse no one, neither the elderly, nor children, nor women. There are many dangers that await us, but if we are destined to die, we will at least die like humans. ”

- I. Kuksin. Belsky brothers

During the execution on April 23, 1942, a group of young Jews shouted: “Hurray! Hurray! ”And several people ran into the forest. The Germans rushed in pursuit, but could not catch anyone - about 20 people were saved ^[1]

In Lida, 5 people were awarded the honorary title “The Righteous Among the Nations ” from the Israeli Yad Vashem Memorial Institute “ as a sign of the deepest gratitude for the assistance provided to the Jewish people during the Second World War ”:

• Parsnip Peter and Stephanie - for the salvation of Molchadsky Wolf and Sarah Rubinovich ^[21] ;
• Doylitko Jan, Stach and Spivak (Doylitko) Leocadia - for saving Bassist Chaim ^[22] .

The Commission for Assistance to the ChGK of the USSR for Lida and the Lida District in 1944 could not name the exact number of those killed and tortured. Her report said that every victim who fell into the clutches of the Nazi invaders went a long thorny path before reaching the grave ^{[2] [23]} .

During the German occupation, 8,000 Jews were tortured and killed in Lida and the region ^{[2] [8] [24]} . In the roll-off list, the ChGK was able to establish the names of only 342 Lida Jews ^[2] .

In 1967, on the graves of 5670 Jews executed on May 8, 1942, through the efforts of relatives, an obelisk and a memorial plate were erected ^{[25] [26] [27]} .

In 1990, a memorial plate was erected for the victims of the Holocaust ^[2] .

On the southwestern edge of Lida, in a forest near the village of Ostrovlya, more than 6,000 Jews were buried in two mass graves. In 1992, at the initiative of the Jewish Memorial Society under the leadership of Tamara Moiseevna Borodach with funds donated by the Jewish community and Jews - former residents of Lida, a memorial monument was erected ^{[1] [5] [25]} . On two granite tables in Russian and Hebrew it is written: “1942 - 1992. 6,700 residents of Lida buried by the Nazi invaders buried in this mass grave” ^{[1] [28] [29]} .

The grave of 8 representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia Lida, who was shot on May 2, 1942 after severe torture in the courtyard of the prison and reburied by the residents of the city, is located in the cemetery near Ivye, near the village of Stonevichi, in the tract Khovanshchina.

Every year on May 8 in Lida mourning events are held in memory of the murdered Jews of the Lida ghetto ^{[1] [30]} .

Incomplete lists of killed Lida Jews have been published ^[31] .

• Adamushko V.I., Biryukova O.V., Kryuk V.P., Kudryakova G.A. Directory of places of forced detention of civilians in the occupied territory of Belarus 1941-1944. - Mn. : National Archive of the Republic of Belarus, State Committee for Archives and Record Keeping of the Republic of Belarus, 2001. - 158 p. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 985-6372-19-4 .
• V.G. Baranў, N.M. Wyman, P.K. Galavati i insh. (redkal.). “Memory. Lіdsky Raion. " - Mn. : “Belarus”, 2004. - ISBN 985-01-0522-4 . (belor.)
• L. Smilovitsky. The ghetto of Belarus - examples of genocide (from the book "The Holocaust of Jews in Belarus, 1941-1944.")
• Lida - article from the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia

• National Archives of the Republic of Belarus (NARB):
  • fund 845, inventory 1, file 7, sheet 2;
  • fund 845, inventory 1, file 8, sheet 8;
  • fund 861, inventory 1, file 7, sheets 2-3, 35, 35ob;
• State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). - fund 7021, inventory 86, case 42, sheets 1-26;
• State Archive of the Grodno Region (GAGO), - fund 1029, inventory 1, file 31, sheets 27-28;
• Archive Yad Vashem , M-33/710;

• Smilovitsky L. L. The catastrophe of the Jews in Belarus, 1941-1944 . - Tel Aviv: Matthew Black Library, 2000 .-- 432 p. - ISBN 965-7094-24-0 .
• Yitzhak Arad . The extermination of the Jews of the USSR during the years of German occupation (1941-1944). Compilation of documents and materials, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem Publishing House , 1991, ISBN 9653080105
• Chernoglazova R. A., Kheer H. The tragedy of the Jews of Belarus in 1941-1944: a collection of materials and documents. - Ed. 2nd, rev. and more .. - Mn. : E. S. Halperin, 1997 .-- 398 p. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 985627902X .

• Ghetto in Lida District