Polotsk (Polatsk) | Vitebsk

Soviet soldiers in Polozk (Belarus), propaganda poster celebrating the reconquest of the city and urging the liberation of the Baltic from Nazi German occupation. ©Public domain, Wikipedia / Mikhail G., born in 1905, saw the bodies in the grave after the shooting. ©Guillaume Ribot/Yahad - In Unum Mikhail G. leading the Yahad team to the execution site of circa. 2,300 Jews from Polotsk (November 21, 1941). Today, the graves are under the road. There is a memorial in the nearby forest. ©Guillaume Ribot/Yahad - In Unum Mikhail G. pointing out the location of the pit the Jews were shot in. ©Guillaume Ribot/Yahad - In Unum Interview with Mikhail S. at the killing site of the Polotsk Jews in Baranovo. ©Guillaume Ribot/Yahad - In Unum The Yahad team trying to figure out the locatio of former ghetto in Borovukha II. ©Guillaume Ribot/Yahad - In Unum The Yahad team looking for witnesses. ©Guillaume Ribot/Yahad - In Unum

Execution of Jews from Polotsk in Borovukha II

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Near a former firing range
Memorials:
Yes
Period of occupation:
1941-1944
Number of victims:
2300

Witness interview

Mikhail G.: "Not long after the gunfire stopped, I went to the site. I saw the very thin bodies of the fully-victims." (Witnesse N°45, interviewed in Baranovo, on July 16, 2008)

Soviet archives

““In 1941 I saw the shooting of the Jews from Polotsk at the Borovukha military base. Many of us women followed the columns when they had been assembled by the Germans and police (...). Children, women and elderly people were shot.” [Deposition of Maria A., born in 1910, inhabitant of Polotsk, May 7,1945; RG-22.002M.7021-84]

Holocaust by bullets in figures

On November 21, 1941, the majority of the Jews from Polotsk were shot in Borovukha II near a former firing range. The Yahad team located the shooting site of the 2,300 Jews from Polotsk.

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