Slutsk (Slutzk) | Minsk

/ View of the town of Slutsk. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum The central square in Slutsk, home to the Lenin monument. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum The memorial at the former location of ghetto n°2. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum Fridrikh F. pointing out the location of ghetto n°1, where he lived with his family. It was comprised of two streets. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum Fridrikh F., born in 1934, was 7 years old when he saw his grandmother and younger brother being forced onto a truck during the ghetto round-up. He managed to survive the war. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum Alexandr L., born in 1927, remembers seeing the Germans collecting the Jews’ belongings, which were then sorted through by a group of women. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum The Yahad team with Fridrikh, a Jewish survivo, near the monument to circa. 8000 Jews murdered by the Nazis. ©Jethro Massey/Yahad - In Unum

Execution of Jews in Slutsk

1 Execution site(s)

Kind of place before:
Field
Memorials:
Yes
Period of occupation:
1941 - 1944
Number of victims:
8,000

Witness interview

Alexandr L., born in 1927: “I saw some smoke coming from the ghetto, and I heard shooting. When I made my way there, I saw several bodies lying in the streets. The whole ghetto had been burned down. ” (Witness N°771B, interviewed in Slutsk, on May 21, 2014)

Soviet archives

“I can add information on several humiliations of Jews that I witnessed. Two or three times, I saw the Germans assemble around 70 Jews near the school building. The Jews were forced to undress down to their underwear and stay there the entire day, from the morning to evening, without food or drink. And at dusk, they were bitten by mosquitos. If a Jew tried to slap the mosquitos away, he was beaten to death by a German with a whip.” [Deposition of Leonid Ch., born in 1928, a local resident, made on September 19, 1944, for Soviet Extraordinary State commission, RG.002M. 7021-81/102]

Historical note

Slutsk is a city located 105 km south of Minsk. In 1939, on third of the total population of the city was Jewish. Before the war, there were 3 synagogues in Slutsk. The local Jewish community was involved in small business and agriculture. The town was a major religious center in the country. Many Yeshiva schools remained openned in the town before the 1917 revolution. The city was occupied by German forces on June 26, 1941.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

Before the Germans’ arrival, only a few Jews managed to escape and there was no mass evacuation.

In July 1941, the first ghetto was created at the former military barracks. According to a Jewish survivor interviewed by Yahad, the inmates only received 250g of bread per person per day. Many Jews had to work in the different factories of the city. On October 27, 1941, this ghetto was liquidated by units of German reserve police battalion 11, aided by Lithuanian auxiliaries. The Jews were killed in pits dug by the Jews themselves near the village of Ivan, west of Slutsk. It is estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 Jews were killed that day, many being skilled workers. Thanks to a local investigation and local testimony recorded by Yahad, it is clear that the monument is not situated exactly on the site of the mass graves.

After this Aktion, a second ghetto, fenced in by barbed wire, was opened in an area of the city center. It was a large ghetto containing circa. 500 houses. It was liquidated gradually. The last major Aktion took place in February 1943, organized by units of the Sipo-SD, aided by Latvian volunteers. The Jews were killed in silo-pits near the small village of Sloboda, east of Slutsk. During the liquidation, many Jews tried to escape or hide, which led to the Germans setting the ghetto on fire. The bodies of the Jews killed within the ghetto were buried in a mass grave situated on the edge of the city. In total, approximately 10,000 Jews from the Slutsk area were killed. For more information about the execution in Sloboda please check the village’s profiel.

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