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

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

Chausy is located 157 kilometers (98 miles) north of Gomel’. According to the 1939 population census, 1,272 Jews (17.6 percent of the total population) lived in the town of Chausy. In addition, another 252 Jews lived in the villages of the Chausy raion. Following the German invasion of Poland and the Soviet occupation of its eastern part in September 1939, a number of Jewish refugees from Poland arrived in the town.

German military forces occupied Chausy on July 16, 1941, three weeks after their invasion of the USSR on June 22. Part of the Jewish population was able to evacuate to the east before the arrival of the Germans, owing to the town’s good rail and road communications, and men of eligible age were called up into the Red Army. A little more than half the prewar Jewish population remained in the town at the start of the occupation.

Under German occupation, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) was in charge of the town; almost immediately it set up a local administration and an auxiliary police force (Ordnungsdienst) recruited from local residents. Shortly afterwards, the Ortskommandantur ordered the registration and marking of the Jewish population. The Jews of Chausy were exploited for various kinds of forced labor.

In August 1941, Sonderkommando 7b (subordinated to Einsatzgruppe B) carried out two Aktions in the city. The men of Sonderkommando 7b murdered 31 Jews in the first Aktion, allegedly for being in contact with Soviet partisan forces.¹ In a second Aktion shortly afterwards, the Security Police (of Sonderkommando 7b) shot 20 Jews who were allegedly active Communists.²

At some time in the month of August, the German authorities established a ghetto in the suburb of Kozinki. A few weeks later, probably in late September or early October 1941, German security forces assisted by the local police liquidated the ghetto.³ They rounded up all the Jews, mainly women, children, and the elderly, deprived them of any remaining valuables, [End Page 1659] and escorted them to a site about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) outside of town on the banks of the Pronia River, where a ditch had been prepared. The few Jews living in the nearby village of Dranukha were also brought to the same site at this time. Just as the shooting was about to start, a courageous teacher named Dora Ruvimovna Kagan jumped out of the crowd and confronted the head of the German police Danilov, shouting: “We are defenseless and can’t fight you. But you can’t kill us all. Millions of Soviet people are left, they will avenge us. Our innocent blood will be on their banners.” According to another account, she spat in the face of Danilov before being cut short by machine-gun fire. Some of the Jews were only wounded as they fell into the ditch. After the grave had been filled in, the moans of the wounded could still be heard for many hours.⁴

Shortly afterwards the German authorities also rounded up and shot Jews born in mixed marriages with one Jewish parent. Among those shot was blond-haired, 18-year-old Ira Grubnykh, whose grandfather was a Jew.⁵ Estimates of the number of Jews murdered vary according to different sources. In total, the Germans and their collaborators shot more than 675 Jews in Chausy.⁶