Zaslavl | Minsk

/ Vladimir D. remembered that inhabitants were requisitioned to fill in the mass grave of the Jewish victims. ©Nicolas Tkatchouk/Yahad - In Unum Yevgenia B. remembered the house burning with the Jews inside. ©Nicolas Tkatchouk/Yahad - In Unum The Zatslavl mass shooting site. ©Nicolas Tkatchouk/Yahad - In Unum

Execution of Jews in Zaslavl

1 Killing site(s)

Investigated by Yahad:
2011
Kind of place before:
Forest
Memorials:
Yes
Period of occupation:
1941-1944
Number of victims:
200

Witness interview

Vladimir D.: "The Jews of Zaslavl were gathered in a ghetto and burned alive. Some of them managed to escape, but they were caught by the Germans. They took them to a forest 1.5 km from the village. 45 Jews were shot." (Witness N° 434, interviewed in April 2011)

Soviet archives

"In October 1941, the Germans gathered the Jews of Zaslavl in a ghetto. They were forbidden from leaving it and they didn’t received food. The ghetto was surrounded by a fence and was supervised day and night. 100 Jews were confined in this ghetto, they were the inhabitants of Zaslavl." [Act of the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission, RG22.022M/7021-87/6]

Historical note

Zaslavl is a small town located 25 km northwest of Minsk. In 1939, Jews comprised 9% of the town’s total population, numbering 248 people. This district center was under German occupation from 1941 to 1944.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

At the start of September 1941, all the Jews of Zaslavl were relocated to a ghetto, which was a building formerly occupied by Soviet border guards. On September 26 and 27, 1941, all the Jewish males were killed, at least 20 people in total, 12 of them burned in the ghetto building. On September 29, around 100 Jews, mostly women, children, and elderly people, were taken on horse carts out of the ghetto under the pretext of future resettlement to Minsk. They were all shot in a pit in the forest near the village of Sloboda. For a month following the liquidation of the ghetto, 35 Jewish women were kept in one of the houses on Bazarnaya Street. They were used for different kinds of forced labor until they were all shot on October 29, 1941.

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