Ghetto in Vetrino (Polotsk district)

In 1939, 61 Jews lived in Vetrino . Before the war, some Jewish men were mobilized into the Red Army . Nobody had time to evacuate before the arrival of German troops ^{[1] [2]} .

The occupation of Vetrino lasted 2 years and 11 months - from July 11, 1941 to June 29, 1944 ^{[3] [4]} . Having occupied Vetrino, the Germans placed their garrison and a police group there ^[5] . Shortly after the occupation, the Nazis conducted a census of Jews, confiscated their property, forced them to sew yellow latches on their clothes, and guarded them to do the most difficult and black jobs - that is, implementing the Nazi destruction program , they forced them to live in an “open” ghetto ^[2] .

At the end of October 1941, the Germans closed the ghetto in Vetrino, driving the Jews (from 40 ^{[6] [1] [7]} to 60 ^[2] people) into three houses on Chkalov Street ^{[1] [2] [7] [6 ]} .

The ghetto was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by police . Non-Jewish residents of Vetrino were forbidden to enter these houses under the threat of execution. Often from there was heard the cry of hungry children. The prisoners were not given any food. Some of the locals secretly sometimes tried to throw something edible under the wire or pass a piece of bread, potatoes or beets when the prisoners were forced to work ^[2] .

An investigation by the Extraordinary State Commission for the Vetrinsky District revealed that on January 11, 1942, a punitive detachment from Polotsk shot all Jews — 59 (40 ^[7] ) people — in a swamp between the village of Kosari and the town of Vetrino ^[7] . 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 ^[8] . For this reason, in the first and second groups of executed Jews there were almost only women, old people and children. Among the ghetto prisoners and the executed were not only local Jews, but also Jews from nearby villages and refugees who came to Vetrino and got into the ghetto ^[2] .

Jews were shot in this place, because on June 27-28, 1941, when the Germans bombed Vetrino for the first time, the fallen bombs formed large craters there, which the Germans decided to use as mass graves ^[2] .

The Germans arrived from Polotsk in two cars. They took the Jews out of their homes. Two Germans walked in front, three behind. The shooting occurred at noon. The prisoners were led to a swamp near the village of Kosari (now Oktyabrskaya Street). From the ghetto to the shooting pits was about 300 meters. 2-3 people were brought to the pit and killed. One boy tried to escape, but was shot and thrown into a pit. Buried the bodies of the dead forced local men. On this day, January 11, 1942 killed more than 40 Jews ^{[2] [7]} .

A week later, a second “action” was organized (the Hitlerites called the massacres they organized as such a euphemism ), when approximately 13 people were shot in the Labkovsky forest, on the way to Bykovschina. These were, apparently, those Jews who managed to hide during the first execution, or those who were driven from nearby villages. They drove this group to the place of death of the police. Residents Vetrino Maslovsky L., Zaichenko V., veteran of World War II Artemenok N. (maiden name Lobok) knew this place well, but it was not designated at the time, and today no one can show it ^[2] .

The family of Samuil Isaakovich Zaretsky died in the ghetto - his wife and three children, the Gindins' family (4 people), Samuil Hoffmann (5 people, including 5-year-old daughter Sonya), the Miltman family (6 people, including children 1, 4 and 7 years) and others. Among the 59 executed Jews, there were 14 children aged 1 to 14 years ^[2] .

A resident of Vetrino Zabermah R.V. tried to save a 4-year-old Jewish girl, the daughter of the pre-war chairman of the Vetrinsky general hospital Hoffmann. The Germans found out about this and killed the child ^[2] .

There is evidence that a resident of the village of Dubrovka in the former Vetrinsky district saved the children of a Jew, I. I. Strikel. There is also evidence of witnesses that P.A. Karpovich, a resident of the village of Nacha-Shpakovschina in the same district, saved the life of a little Jewish girl - a group of Jews was driven to Disna through their village. The girl’s mother imperceptibly pushed her daughter into the former pans crypt near the road. Karpovich, who saw this, took the girl to her, and although many saw it, no one informed the Germans ^[2] .

The materials of the Chelyabinsk Chemistry Committee named those responsible for the murders of vetrinsky Jews: military commandant Geiger Willy Heinrich, a native of Hamburg; assistant commandant Shneppan; headquarters sergeant major, chief of the Gestapo Riesa ^[2] .

On Komsomolsky Lane Vetrino there is a small memorial complex erected on November 8, 2002 - a track 2 meters wide and 30 meters long, leading to a stone on which a six-pointed star is knocked out and there is a granite tablet with the inscription: “ The burial place of 59 Jews - residents of Vetrino, shot by the Nazi occupiers in December 1941. " Before the war, there was a wasteland on this place, and after the war, first a collective farm field, then the place was built up with houses. The monument to the victims of the Jewish genocide is located in the middle of the garden of P. Bullach, who allowed the memorial to be erected on his land ^{[2] [9]} .

There are discrepancies in the dates of execution based on materials from the ChGK (January 11, 1942) and according to the testimonies of witnesses (December 1941). This is probably due to the fact that there were two executions ^[2] .

• 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. Karasev. “Danina memory. Staronki Genatsidu Yareyskag settlement Vetryna ", the newspaper" Polatsky Vesnіk ", November 12, 2002 (Belarusian)
• VETRINO - article from the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia
• National Archives of the Republic of Belarus (NARB):
  • fund 845, inventory 1, file 144, sheets 28-29;
  • fund 845, inventory 1, file 64, sheets 26-27;
  • fund 861, inventory 1, file 13, sheet 155;
• State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). - fund 7021, inventory 92, case 210, sheets 5 vol., 192, 195, 196 vol.-197;
• I.B. Karostsik, R.I. Maslouski, A. L. Petrashkevich i insh. (redkal.), S. S. Charnyanskaya (laying). “Memory. Polatsk Raion. " - Mn. : “Higher School”, 1999. - 700 p. - ISBN 985-06-0447-6 . (belor.)
• Shulman A. “The Last Witness”

• 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 .
• Vinnitsa G.R. Holocaust in the occupied territory of Eastern Belarus in 1941-1944. - Mn. : Ark, 2011 .-- 360 p. - 150 copies. - ISBN 978-985-6950-96-7 .

• Ghetto in the Polotsk region