Country: Belarus

Group: Jews

Date Finalized: 4/12/2022

Team: Gabby Staker (lead), Erin Fagan, Lacey Hurst, Ash Pessaran

Content Warning: physical violence, forced labor, antisemitism, Holocaust

Approximate Time Period: 1930-1950

Throughout the 1930s and 40s, hundreds of thousands of Jewish people in Belarus experienced forced resettlement at the hands of both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany (The Holocaust in Belarus).

Jewish communities were first established in Belarus around the 14th Century (Minority Rights Group, 2015). At the turn of the 20th Century, many Jews who had once made a living as craftsmen, shopkeepers, merchants, and farmers found new economic promise in city centers like Minsk, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Pinsk, and Gomel (facinghistory.org, n.d.a). In June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded Belarus as part of an offensive attack against the Soviet Red Army called Operation Barbarossa (facinghistory.org, n.d.b). Nazis concentrated the Jewish population into 250 ghettos across Belarus before committing mass genocide. The Minsk ghetto, with 100,000 prisoners, was the largest (Adamushko, 2012). The European Jewish Congress estimates that 90% of the Jewish population was murdered during WWII (facinghistory.org, n.d.b).

The data quality for the Jewish experience of Forced Away is rated a 3/3 due to a breadth of data from multiple credible sources concerning Jewish resettlement.

Sources

  1. Adamushko, V. I. (2012, January 3). On the Genocide of the Jewish Population in Belarus Republic during WWII. European Holocaust Research Infrastructure. https://www.ehri-project.eu/content/genocide-jewish-population-belarus-republic-during-wwii
  2. FacingHistory.org (n.d.a). Jewish Life in Belarus Before the Holocaust. Facing History and Ourselves. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/resistance-during-holocaust/jewish-life-belarus-holocaust
  3. FacingHistory.org (n.d.b). The Holocaust in Belarus. (n.d.). Facing History and Ourselves. Retrieved March 22, 2022, from https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/resistance-during-holocaust/holocaust-belarus
  4. Minority Rights Group-Jews. (2015, June). https://minorityrights.org/minorities/jews/