Holocaust in the Senno region (Vitebsk region)

The Nazis included the Senno district in the territory administratively assigned to the headquarters of the rear of Army Group Center . All power in the area belonged to the Nazi military occupation administration, acting through the field and local commandant’s offices created by the Wehrmacht. To carry out the policy of genocide and carry out punitive operations, immediately after the troops, the punitive units of the SS troops, Einsatzgruppe , Sonderkommando , secret field police (SPF), security and SD police, gendarmerie and the Gestapo arrived in the area.

In all large villages of the district, district (volost) councils and police garrisons from Belarusian collaborators were created ^[3] .

The occupying authorities, on pain of death, forbade Jews to take off their yellow armor or six-pointed stars (identification marks on their outer clothing), leave the ghetto without special permission, change their place of residence and apartment inside the ghetto, walk on sidewalks, use public transport, be in parks and public places to attend schools ^[4] .

Simultaneously with the occupation, the Nazis and their henchmen began the mass extermination of Jews. “Actions” (such as the euphemism by the Nazis called the massacres organized by them) were repeated many times in many places. In those settlements where Jews were not killed immediately, they were kept in ghetto conditions until they were completely destroyed ^[5] .

During the occupation, almost all Jews of the Senno region were killed ^[6] . The most massacres took place in Senno , Bogushevsk and the village of Obol of the Moshkansky village council ^[7] . A detachment of punitive forces of 15 people arrived in the village of Obol in 1942. The last Jewish family in the village was captured, taken to a mountain, to a pansky manor, and killed, including two little girls (aged 8 and 3 months) ^[8] .

The Germans, implementing the Nazi program of extermination of Jews , created 2 ghettos in the district.

• About 1,000 Jews were killed in the ghetto of the city of Senno (September 1941 - December 30, 1941).
• In the ghetto of the village of Bogushevsk (summer 1941 - September 5, 1941), 87 Jews were tortured and killed.

Monuments were erected in Bogushevsk at the site of the execution of Jews on September 5, 1941 and at the site of the reburial of their remains in a Jewish cemetery.

In Senno, a monument was erected on the site of the execution of Jews.

After the war, in Oboli, the relatives of the dead arrived in the village, put up a fence and a memorial sign on their mass grave. A list of those buried in this grave has been published ^[8] .

• St. S. Godў, A. I. Zaleski i iнш. (redcal.); S.V. Shaiko. (way.). “Memory. Sennensky Ryan. " Gistoryka-documentary chronicle of garadoў and raѐnaў Belarus .. - Mn. : "Paligrafafarmlenne", 2003. - 614 p. - ISBN 985-6351-18-9 . (belor.)
• L. Smilovitsky. The ghetto of Belarus - examples of genocide (from the book "The Holocaust of Jews in Belarus, 1941-1944."
• Bogushevsk - an article from the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia ;
• Senno - an article from the Russian Jewish Encyclopedia ;

• 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 .

• Monuments to the victims of the Holocaust in Belarus