The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945

Pre-1941: Bobruisk, city and raion center, Mogilev oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Rayon center, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Babruisk, raen center, Mahiliou voblasts’, Republic of Belarus

Bobruisk is located 110 kilometers (68 miles) southwest of Mogilev. According to the census of 1939, there were 26,703 Jews living there (31.6 percent of the total population). The initial advance of German forces into Soviet territory in late June and July 1941 induced some of Bobruisk’s Jews to evacuate to the east, while a number of male Jews were called up into the Red Army. No precise figure exists for the number of Jews in the city on the day it was occupied.

On June 28, 1941, units of the 3rd Panzer Division, as well as elements of the 4th Panzer Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, entered Bobruisk. Initially, the city was part of the German 2nd Army’s zone of operations, but from August 1941 the territory of Bobruisk was administered by Rear Area, Army Group Center. The various administrative tasks in the city were divided between the local commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur I/274) and the field commandant’s office (Feldkommandantur 581), but the former unit was subordinated to the latter.

From the first days of the occupation, the Germans ordered the inhabitants to observe a strict curfew and forbade them to leave “the limits of their residential area.” Jews were forced to wear yellow six-pointed stars. Additionally, the Germans demanded that the Jews hand over their money, gold, jewelry, and furs. One of the first measures taken by the Germans was to register the entire population and compile a list of the Jews of Bobruisk. At about the same time, the German authorities established a Jewish Council (Judenrat), which also served to separate the Jews from other segments of the population.

The Bobruisk ghetto was established in the area defined by Novoshosseinaia, Zaturenskogo, and Bobrova Streets.¹ According to M.G. Kogan, by July 30, 1941, 10 days after its establishment, all the Jews of Bobruisk had been relocated into the ghetto. In the meantime, the local population plundered what was left of the Jews’ property. The ghetto was enclosed by a fence and guarded. The prisoners were prohibited from leaving its confines.

These oppressive German policies forced people to live under absolutely intolerable conditions. Ghetto prisoners had to endure extreme overcrowding, with as many as 35 people sharing a room. In the ghetto it was forbidden to heat furnaces and cook food. It was possible for the Jews to obtain something to eat only by secretly escaping from the ghetto at night and bartering personal possessions for food.² Any Jews caught outside the ghetto were shot immediately. Inhabitants of the ghetto were perpetually exhausted. Many Jews died from starvation and disease. Prisoners of the ghetto were also not able to wash. Some inhabitants of the ghetto succumbed to despair and attempted to commit suicide by hanging themselves. The Germans and their collaborators came to the ghetto for entertainment, selecting beautiful girls and raping them. The chief of police would enter the ghetto and shoot anyone in sight. Similar visits by the murderers would end, as a rule, with the murder of between 15 and 20 Jews. On a regular basis, Germans would round up teenagers and bring them to the hospital, where their blood would be taken. Inhabitants of the ghetto were forced to do heavy physical labor (digging and railway construction work).³ Jews were forced to assist the Germans in defusing mines by dragging large rakes across the minefield. Many peopled died as the mines exploded. The Germans set dogs on those who tried to hide.

It seems that those with particular skills had a special status. Administrative correspondence between the municipal government and local enterprises, dated between September 13 and 18, 1941, reveals that the Jews H.M. Krichevski, R.S. Stison, L.A. Liakhovskoi, R.O. Ginsburg, N.B. Rozovski, and U.A. Golodez were entrusted with restoring a pharmacy and received special passes and bandages.⁴

According to Kima Rutman, some Jews from western Belorussia were also brought to the Bobruisk ghetto.⁵ He also saw how elderly Jews dug holes in the ground in which they secretly placed their Talmuds, prayer books, Torahs, and talles, as well as lists of prisoners of the ghetto.

In July 1941, the mass killings or Aktions began. Not everything about them is known, making it difficult to present a complete account of the destruction of Bobruisk Jewry.

From the available evidence, it has been determined that between September and October 1941, Einsatzkommando 8 (headed by Dr. Bradfisch) conducted three mass shootings in [End Page 1649] and around Bobruisk, during which 407, 1,380, and 418 Jews were killed, respectively.⁶ The largest Aktion during this period was conducted by the SS-Cavalry Brigade in September 1941, in which some 7,000 Jews were killed in the area next to the airfield.⁷

Little is known about Jewish resistance in the city. The 1,380 Jews mentioned above were murdered supposedly because of their dissemination of propaganda directed against the German authorities. According to another Einsatzgruppen report, Jews in Bobruisk had shown open resistance against the orders issued by the German occupation authorities and had openly incited the population to acts of sabotage.⁸

The history of the Bobruisk ghetto came to an end on November 7–8, 1941. According to one source, the Aktion began on November 6, 1941.⁹ In the early morning, Belorussian policemen and German soldiers rounded up the Jews, forcing them out of their homes. They shouted instructions about a journey to Palestine, while beating Jews with rifle butts. They forcibly loaded the Jews into trucks that took them to the village of Kamenka. The loading process continued until evening. The place of extermination was 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) from Bobruisk, near the road to Slutsk. Earlier, prisoners had dug three large ditches in the area. As Jews arrived, they were ordered to remove their clothes and footwear, then shot.¹⁰ According to German sources, on November 7–8, 1941, 5,281 people were killed. The mass killing was carried out by units of Einsatzkommando 8 and Police Battalion 316.

A letter addressed to the commandant of the city of Bobruisk from the Belorussian mayor, Stankevich, reported that “the warehouses of the city contain the newly arrived property from the ‘ghetto.’ As these items were transported quickly, they arrived in a chaotic condition and were sorted first before their sale. After the goods were unloaded and organized, a number of military officials and private citizens visited the warehouse, selecting whatever items they wanted.”¹¹

After the extermination of November 7–8, 1941, the Germans declared that the territory of Bobruisk was “free of Jews,” although a few craftsmen from the ghetto were kept alive, as their work was still required. Part of the ghetto remained fenced in, and four houses on Novoshosseinaia Street held tailors, shoemakers, and blacksmiths.

In addition to keeping the Jews alive for their work, the Germans exploited their continued existence in another way. It was apparent that a considerable number of inhabitants from the ghetto had managed to survive. The occupiers posted announcements declaring that there would be no further punitive measures against the Jews and that they were invited back into the ghetto. The bait worked, as some of the surviving prisoners, having no other choice, returned. The Germans waited until December 30, 1941.¹² On that day, the police surrounded the rump of the ghetto, and all the Jews were placed into trucks and driven to a place of extermination. It is estimated that the Germans murdered up to 2,500 people during this Aktion.¹³

The exact number of survivors has not been determined. Evidence exists about only a handful of individuals.

For rescuing Maria Minz, Bronislav Altshuler, and Guini Maz, the award of “Righteous Among the Nations” was granted by Yad Vashem to the Belyavsky family (Efrosiniya and son Alexander), the Yalovik family (Julia and son Victor), and the Micholak family (Stephanida and daughter Galina), respectively.¹⁴

Starting in the fall of 1943 and continuing until January 1944, the German occupiers took the remains of the Jews killed at Kamenka, at Elovkin, and at the Jewish cemetery of Bobruisk and burned them, trying to hide all traces of the murder. This barbaric act was carried out by prisoners who were themselves later killed. In those places where the Germans did not have enough time to conduct similar operations, they tried to disguise the mass graves under freshly sown fields and new roads.