Konyukhi (Kanyukhi) | Minsk

/ Ambiance in Konyukhi. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum The Yahad team looking for witnesses. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum Ivan L. remembers that the ghetto was surrounded with barbed wire and consisted of 2 barracks. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum A witness leads the Yahad team to the execution site situated in the middle of the forest. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum The execution site of Jews in Konyukhi. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum

Execution of the Grozava Jews in Konyukhi

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Forest
Memorials:
Yes
Period of occupation:
1941-1944
Number of victims:
433

Witness interview

Ivan L.: “After the German invasion, the Jews could no longer work in their shops because they had been destroyed or plundered by the residents. Lots of them were forced to flee.” (Witness N°745 interviewed in Popovtsy, on May 15, 2014)

Soviet archives

“On December 18, 1941, the Jews were loaded onto trucks and taken to a forest, where two pits had already been prepared. Once there, we forced them to lie down in the pits, shoulders up, and then we shot them. The following group had to lie down on top of the bodies of the people who had been shot, like sardines in a barrel.” [Testimony for the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission RG-22.002M 7021-82]

Historical note

Konyukhi is a small village situated 80km southwest of Minsk, about 3km from the village of Grozovo. In 1939, there were approximately 500 Jews living in Grozovo. There was a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery. The vaillage was under German occupation from 1941 to 1944.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

In autumn 1941, the Jews of Grozovo were gathered in the military barracks in the nearby village of Konyukhi. According to a witness interviewed by Yahad - In Unum, the Jews were transported to Konyukhi in carts, driven by requisitioned locals. The ghetto was not guarded.

On December 19, 1941, the Jews were transported on trucks by a German punitive unit assisted by local police. They were shot in a pit dug in advance, in a forest between Konyukhi and Grozovo. A few families of special workers who were kept alive in Grozovo were also shot in May 1942 in a ditch close to the village of Mikhaletsy.

Nearby villages

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