BOGUSHEVICHI
[End Page 1650] Pre-1941: Bogushevichi (Yiddish: Bushavitz), village, Berezino raion, Mogilev oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Boguschewitschi, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Bahushevichy, Berazino raen, Minsk voblasts’, Republic of Belarus
Bogushevichi is situated 82 kilometers (51 miles) southeast of Minsk. German forces of Army Group Center occupied the town on July 3, 1941. Some of the Jews were eva cuated or succeeded in fleeing eastward. Following the occupation of the village, the German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) appointed a village elder (starosta) and organized a Belorussian police force (Ordnungsdienst) consisting of local residents.
In the summer and fall of 1941, the German authorities implemented a series of anti-Jewish measures in Bogushevichi. Jews were registered and forced to wear yellow patches; they had to perform forced labor; and they were prohibited from leaving the limits of the village.
In late July or early August 1941, the military authorities established a ghetto in the village, located in a school building consisting of two floors. Both local Jews and others from surrounding villages, including the Jews of Seliba, were forced to move into the ghetto. In total, there were around 400 Jews in the Bogushevichi ghetto. There was no electricity in the ghetto, and the toilet facilities were located outside the building. A number of Jews were taken away and shot during the summer and fall of 1941.1
Survivors state that they rarely saw Germans while in the ghetto but recall vividly local police coming to the ghetto while drunk, demanding “Jewish gold.” Forced labor tasks included harvesting potatoes, and Jews who worked outside the ghetto were also able to beg for extra food from their non-Jewish neighbors.2
According to survivor testimony, at least some of the Jews from the Bogushevichi ghetto were transferred to the Berezino ghetto in October or November 1941, around the time of the first snowfall.3 The Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) report, however, indicates that German security forces assisted by the local police liquidated the ghetto in December 1941, shooting most of the remaining 380 inmates in a forest 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) north of the village.4
SOURCES
Documentation regarding the extermination of the Jews of Bogushevichi can be found in the following archives: GARF (7021-87-2); NARB; VHF (# 6551, 7052, and 20880); and YVA (M-33/420).
NOTES
1. VHF, # 6551, testimony of Roman Plaksa; # 7052, testimony of Evgeniia Guzik; and # 20880, testimony of Zinaida Elkind.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., # 7052 and # 20880.
4. GARF, 7021-87-2, p. 6; YVA, M-33/420, p. 14; and Marat Botvinnik, Pamiatniki genotsida evreev Belarusi (Minsk: Belaruskaia Navuka, 2000), p. 60.
