Tolminovo | Grodno 

Tolminovo is a very small village close to the city of Oshmiany, situated 130 km northwest of Minsk. Before WW2, there were about 3,000 Jews living in Oshmyany, but Tolminovo was mainly Belarusian. The majority of Jews were craftsmen or owners of small shops. However, there were also farmers. The largest industries, such as the mineral water bottling plant, beer factory, distilling factories, tobacco house, etc., belonged to the Jews. The German forces occupied the village at the end of June 1941.

As the town of Oshmyany was seized rapidly in June 1941 by German forces, most of the Jews were unable to evacuate. On July 26, 1941, 527 male Jews were shot in a forest close to the village of Lyugovshchina by a detachment of Einsatzkommando 9. According to testimony of Marian Z. recorded by Yahad – In  Unum, the men were locked up in one of the city’s buildings before being shot

In October 1941, all the Jews from the city, including those from surrounding villages, were gathered in a ghetto, imprisoned and guarded. “Contributions” in the form of money and goods were regularly collected. In mid-1942, nearly 1,800 Jews were registered in the ghetto, 4,000 at the end of the year. Many of them were used for forced labor. On October 21, 1942, Jews were shot in a pit close to the village of Tolminovo, alongside Jews from Krevo and Smorgon. On October 23, 1942, more than 400 elderly Jews were shot in a pit close to the village of Lyugovshchina. The ghetto was liquidated in March and April 1943 when the Jews were sent to labor camps in Lithuania or to the Vilnius ghetto.

For more information about executions of the Oshmyany Jews, please consult the Lyugovshchina town page.