1 Execution site(s)
Sofia S., born in 1931, remembers: “The Jews were imprisoned in various houses of the village. They had to wear special signs on them. All the villages were surrounded with barbed wire, and watched by a guard in a high tower.” (Eyewitness N°753, interviewed in Zaostrovechye, on May 18, 2014)
Zaostrovechye is a village situated 120 km southwest of Minsk. Before the war, there was a small Jewish community living there. There was a synagogue. The place was under German occupation from 1941 to 1944.
At the end of 1941, a special type of ghetto was created as the whole village was surrounded with barbed wire. The Jews were concentrated in different houses in the village. There were 4 entrances to enter the village and a watchtower. The ghetto was liquidated in June 1942, and the fate of the Jews remains a bit unclear, depending on the sources. It appears that some of them were taken to the village of Sinyavka, where they were shot alongside local Jews. But according to witnesses interviewed by Yahad, there were also Jews shot inside the village, in the central square. Then, their corpses were buried in a mass grave close to the central square.
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