Zaostrovechye | Minsk

The former building of the synagogue. © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum The former police post. © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum Sofia S. remembers that she was grazing her cow when she heard the shooting. © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum Sofia S., born in 1931: "My Jewish friends were also shot at the central square along with their mother. The Jews were forced to lie donw facing the ground and were shot with a sub machine gun." © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum Sofia S. points the direction from were she watvhed the shooting. At this moment she was at home. © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum About noon, the Jews were taken to the center near the selsoviet building. They were shot at the big square and after, their corpses were taken in carts by other Jews. The bodies were burried in the pit. © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum Yahad team reconstructs the stages of the crime with a local witness in Zaostrovechye © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum Yahad team during an interview © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum The monument to the Holocaust Jewish victims murdered by Nazi in Zaostrovechye. © Jethro Massey - Yahad-In Unum

Execution of Jews in Zaostrovechye

1 Execution site(s)

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

Witness interview

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)

Historical note

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.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

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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