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Belarus was both the epicenter of European mass killings and the base of operations of Anti-Nazi partisans who actually contributed to the victory of the Allies - Timothy Snyder, an American historian

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The Jewish population in Belarus can be dated back to the fourteenth century. Jewish people lived in small villages and often worked jobs such as artisans, merchants, shopkeepers and farmers. Although most Jewish families were poor, the region was filled with culture and literature. Belarus had become the center for the Jewish Hasidic movements.National institutions of Jewish culture, the Yiddish language and Communist ideology also became an important center of Jewish-Communist activity in the Soviet Union. In addition to that, Yiddish schools were established at the Institute of Belarusian Culture, which was formed and founded in 1924, and Jewish department was also established in 1921, with the faculty of the University of Minsk.

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In late July of 1941a ghetto was established in Minsk, Belarus. 80,000 Jewish people (including those from neighboring towns) were forced into the Minsk ghetto, which was the largest ghetto located in the Soviet Union. Despite this, the Minsk ghetto was exceedingly crowded, as each individual living in the ghetto was only given a space of 1.5 square meters, and children were not given any space at all.The ghetto was surrounded by barbed wire and inhabitants of the ghetto were under constant surveillance

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According to Nazi statistics, by February 1st of 1943, approximately 87,000 Jewish people were killed in Minsk, and it is estimated that 90% of Belarus’ Jewish population was murdered

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According to Nazi statistics, by February 1st of 1943, approximately 87,000 Jewish people were killed in Minsk, and it is estimated that 90% of Belarus’ Jewish population was murdered

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In August of 1941, the Jewish people living in the Minsk ghetto established an anti-German underground. Members of the underground organized escape routes from the ghetto and formed partisan units in the forests to the southeast and northwest of Minsk. 30,000 Jewish people joined these groups and approximately 340,000 non-Jewish partisans worked to fight against the Nazi regime. In the Minsk ghetto, the Jewish resistance was led Mikhail Gebelev. Thousands of people were able to escape to the forests of Slutsk and Koydanov, however, most of those who escaped were eventually captured and killed by German parachutists.

PHOTO BELOW:

This photo is of a woman named Maria “Masha” Bruskina. She was a seventeen-year-old Jewish-Soviet partisan who became the first female to be publicly hanged by the Nazis in Belarus since the German Invasion of the Soviet Union. She was hanged in Minsk on October 26th, 1941, alongside two other men involved in the partisan movements. In photographs of her execution, Masha appears to have blonde hair, but she had died it when she began to work for the underground. The high school graduate worked as a nurse in a military hospital and she aided Soviet officers who were hospitalized and escaped to join the partisans. She was sentenced to death because she stole identity papers and medicine from the Nazi soldiers  and gave them to the Soviet Army.

The sign reads We are Partisans who shot at German Soldiers

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Saveliy Kaplinsky is a survivor the Minsk Ghetto. He was born to a Jewish Family in September of 1929.During the war, one of Saveliy’s brothers served in the Russian Army and fought against the Nazi soldiers, while the other worked at a war factory in Siberia. Him and the rest of his family remained in Minsk because his mother was expecting a baby girl. Him and his family were eventually placed in the Minsk Ghetto. In the years 1941-1942, when Saveliy was aged 13, his parents and younger sister were murdered in the ghetto. Due to the lack of resources in the ghetto, Saveliy Kaplinsky was left starving and was forced to work. He managed to steal weapons such as grenades and cartridges from the Nazi Soldiers and became a member of an underground group and escaped the ghetto in June of 1943.  Saveliy Kaplinsky now regularly returns to Minsk to visit a mass grave in Belarus called, Minsky Yama, which honours the lives of 5,000 Jewish people, including is family members; while also speaking out against anti-Semitism

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This is "Saveliy Kaplinsky Part 1" by Marks JCH of Bensonhurst on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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When we were discovered by a German guard, I was so scared… and started to run--the guard followed me… I slammed into another woman… Just then the guard fired his gun. We both fell and I was sure I'd been hit. But I stood up and found that I wasn't wounded. The other woman lay motionless”  - Berta Rivkina,

Berta Rivkina was a young Jewish girl born in Minsk, Belarus. When Berta was 12, she was placed in the Minsk ghetto, however she managed to escape alongside her mother and hid inside a warehouse. This a quote from her testimony, explaining her escape story

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The Holocaust Memorial in Minsk, Belarus

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The Holocaust Memorial in Minsk, Belarus

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The Belarus Holocaust Memorial Project has placed memorials around the country in locations where mass kills took place. The photo below is the memorial sight in Minsk, Belarus.