Lenin | Gomel

/ In a witness’ house. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum Vladimir T. remembers that some Jewish houses were plundered after the shooting. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum The Jewish cemetery in Lenin. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum The shooting site of Lenin’s Jews. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum

Execution of Jews in Lenin

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Field
Memorials:
Yes
Period of occupation:
1941-1944
Number of victims:
3000

Witness interview

Vladimir T., born in 1930: “My father used to go to the Kommandantur to obtain a pass for a Jewish man so he could come and work for us. We knew him before the war, he used to do construction on our house.” (Witness N°755, interviewed Lenin, on May, 18 2014)

Historical note

Lenin is a village situated 95km east of Pinsk, in the middle of a large forest. In 1941, 2,000 Jews lived in Lenin, including refugees. There were 2 synagogues and a Jewish school in the village. The village was under German occupation from 1941 to 1944.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

In May 1942, a closed ghetto was created on a street in the village. Jews from surrounding villages were also interned there. Many men from Lenin were sent to the Gantsevichi labor camp. When the ghetto was liquidated on August 14, 1942, 750 Jews escaped to the woods in one of the first uprisings of the war. The rest were taken to trenches that had been dug in the field on the Ogarkov property and executed by Germans assisted by local police. According to witnesses interviewed by Yahad, skilled workers were kept alive and separate in a house outside of the ghetto. They were later liberated by the Partisans.

For more information about Gantsevichi please check the profile of the village.

Nearby villages

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