The ghetto in Khomsk (July 1941 - August 1941) is a Jewish ghetto , the place of forced resettlement of Jews in the village of Chomsk, Chomsky village council of the Drogichin district of the Brest region and nearby settlements during the persecution and extermination of Jews during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany during the Second World War .
| Ghetto in Chomsk | |
|---|---|
 Chomsk on the list of Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust in the Valley of Destroyed Communities at the Yad Vashem Museum | |
| Location | Chomsk Drogichin district Brest region |
| Period of existence | July 1941 - August 1941 |
| Death toll | about 2000 |
Content
The occupation of Chomsk and the creation of the ghetto
Before the war, at least 1000 Jews lived in the town of Chomsk [1] [2] .
The village was captured by German troops on June 25, 1941, and almost no one had time to evacuate the Jews of the village [1] [3] .
By the end of July 1941, the Germans, implementing a Nazi program of extermination of Jews , organized a ghetto in the town and forced the Jews to organize a Judenrat [1] .
Ghetto Destruction
The ghetto in Chomsk did not last long - 3-4 weeks, and was destroyed during the Nazi punitive operation “Pripyat swamps” (Pripiatsee) or “Pripyat march”, which provided for the development and conduct of the first mass killings of Jews by SS troops in Belarus [2] .
On August 14 (2 [2] ) 1941, a cavalry unit of the SS entered the village from the east, which was stationed in Bialystok — more than 150 punitive forces in total [3] .
The next day, Jews were separated from local residents, buttons were cut off from their trousers, and their belts were removed. About 40 non-Jewish people were taken to the northern outskirts of the town and forced to dig a trench. The fat German in crosses measured 30 m in steps and said that the pit should be 30 m long and 4 m deep [2] [3] .
On August 16, 1941, the Jews of Chomsk were ordered to take all valuables and go to the outskirts of the village. Things were taken from the doomed people, women and children were separated from men, after which the men were taken away, forced to undress and shot at the edge of the pit [3] .
After the murder of each batch of Jews, the Germans drank a glass of schnapps and laughed merrily. Local peasants were forced to descend into the pit and evenly lay the bodies of the dead [2] .
On the second day, the rabbi was cut off his beard and mockingly ordered to hand over the “indemnity” - a bag of gold and a bag of dollars. After that, the women were ordered to take the children and the most expensive things (several kilograms) supposedly for moving to Palestine . They were built in a column and taken to the edge of the village to the old cemetery in the ravine. When the column stopped at the ravine, people were shot with a machine gun [2] [3] .
By the end of the day all the Jews of Chomsk were killed, their mass grave was only lightly sprinkled with earth [3] . Those who were forced to lay the dead and bury the grave, the Germans gave water to wash their hands from blood and, under the threat of death, were ordered not to tell anyone about what had happened [2] .
The earth moved in a mass grave, the groans of buried people were heard alive. The Germans forced the locals to dig them out and killed the wounded. One Jewish young man, who was not in the town the day before, came on the second day himself and asked him to be shot. The German took out a gun and killed the guy [2] .
After some time, the Germans drove a small group of Jews from Shereshevo to Chomsk, used them for hard work, and were soon killed as well [3] .
In total, about 2,000 Jews were killed in Chomsk, both local and from nearby settlements [4] [2] [5] .
Memory
Two monuments to local victims of the Jewish genocide were erected in Chomsk. One is on the mass grave of women and children, and the second is on the mass grave of Jewish men [3] [6] .
Incomplete lists of Jews killed in Chomsk published [7]
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 Granik Sergey Vladimirovich. Holocaust: Eyes of Eyewitnesses // Our Land - Zagorodye: Historical and Local Lore Newspaper of the Drogichin District. - 2012. - August ( No. 16-17 ). - S. 6-7 .
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A. Litvin. Assassins , the newspaper Belarus Today , 03/03/2003
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Galakh Nikolai Yakovlevich, Granik Sergey Vladimirovich. The tragedy of the town of Chomsk // Our Land - Zagorodye: The local history newspaper of the Drogichin district. - 2012. - August ( No. 16-17 ). - S. 5 .
- ↑ "Memory. Dragichinsky rayan. ", 1997 , p. 303-307.
- ↑ M. Rinsky. Of the Peker clan
- ↑ Jewish Heritage Research Group in Belarus. Khomsk
- ↑ "Memory. Dragichinsky rayan. ", 1997 , p. 304-307.
Sources
- I.Ya. Alyakseychik, S.P. Mamatsyuk i insh. (redcal.), S.A. Suprun (laying). “Memory. Dragichynsky rayan. " - Mn. : “BELTA”, 1997. - 575 p. - ISBN 985-6302-02-1 . (belor.)
Further reading
- 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 .
See also
- Ghetto in the Drogichin district