Holocaust in Lida district

The Lida region was completely occupied by German troops in June 1941, and the occupation lasted more than three years - until July 1944 ^[3] . The Nazis included the Lida district in the territory administratively assigned to the general district of Belarus of the Ostland Reichskommissariat .

All power in the area belonged to the Sonderfuhrer , the German chief of the district, who was subordinate to the head of the district, the Gebitsomissar . In all large villages of the district, district (volost) councils and police garrisons from Belarusian and Polish collaborators were created ^[4] .

To carry out the policy of genocide and conduct punitive operations, immediately after the troops, the punitive units of the SS troops, Einsatzgruppen , Sonderkommando , secret field police (HFP), security and SD police, gendarmerie and the Gestapo arrived in the region ^[5] .

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, using heavy and dirty forced labor, which caused many prisoners to die from excessive loads in the conditions of constant hunger and lack of medical care.

During the occupation, almost all Jews of the Lida district - more than 20,000 ^[6] people - were killed, and the few who survived fought in the majority later in partisan units ^[7] .

The most massacres of Jews in the region occurred in Lida, in the villages of Selets (50 people in July 1941) ^{[8] [9]} , Belitsa ^[10] and others.

Before the war, about 700 Jews lived in the village of Belitsa . 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 ^[11] . For this reason, immediately after the occupation, the Germans shot and buried Jewish men (47 people) near the Orthodox Church. The remaining women, children and the elderly were taken to the ghetto in Dyatlovo . The remains of those killed in 1998 were reburied ^[12] .

The occupation authorities, on pain of death, forbade Jews to take off their yellow armor or six-pointed stars (identification marks on 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 ^[13] .

The Germans, implementing the Nazi program of extermination of Jews , created 1 ghetto in the territory of the district - in Lida, where from the summer of 1941 to September 1943 about 8,000 Jews were tortured and killed.

In the Lida district, 8 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 in Lida ^[14] ;
• Shumskaya Maria - for the salvation of Degenfish Galina in Osovo ;
• Malakhovskys Vladislav and Franz - for the salvation of Mukasey Khasi, Novoslansky Zvi and Geller and the Globukh family in Plyasovichi ^[15] ;
• Doylitko Jan, Stakh and Spivak (Doylitko) Leocadia - for saving Bassist Chaim in Lida ^[16] .

Incomplete lists of victims of the Jewish genocide in the Lida region have been published ^[17] .

Monuments to the murdered Jews of the region are erected in Lida ^[18] and in Belitsa ^[19] .

• V.G. Baranў, N.M. Wyman, P.K. Galavati i insh. (redkal.). “Memory. Lіdsky Raion. " - Mn. : “Belarus”, 2004. - ISBN 985-01-0522-4 . (belor.)
• 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 .

• L. Smilovitsky , "The Holocaust of Jews in Belarus, 1941-1944.", Tel Aviv, 2000
• 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 .

• Monuments to the victims of the Holocaust in Belarus