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

Pre-1941: Glusk, town and raion center, Poles’e oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Glussk, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Hlusk, raen center, Mahiliou voblasts’, Republic of Belarus

Glusk is located 46 kilometers (29 miles) southwest of Bobruisk. In 1939, 1,935 Jews lived in Glusk (37.8 percent of the total population).

According to the testimony of Yankel Gurevich, at the beginning of the German invasion many citizens of Glusk were distraught and did not know what to do.¹ Grigory Brum [End Page 1670] stated that no one in Glusk knew how long the war would last, but most assumed that if they waited, the war would soon end. It was widely believed that even if Glusk were to be occupied, the Jews would be left unscathed. The majority of Jews in Glusk were unable to evacuate because of the rapid German advance. German forces entered the city on June 27–28, 1941.²

Although during the course of the first month no anti-Jewish Aktions took place, the situation changed quickly. The Germans organized a police force from local citizens, under the command of Makarov. Jews were ordered to wear a yellow six-pointed star on the front and back of their clothing. Some form of ghetto was established (probably an open ghetto), but most Jews continued to live in their own houses, which were also marked with a Star of David. Survivor testimony uses the term “ghetto” explicitly, but it remains unclear if the ghetto area was enclosed by a fence or if it was guarded.³ Jews were forbidden to leave the settlement without permission or trade with non-Jews. They were ordered to report to a labor camp daily, from which they were sent to perform various tasks. At night they were released. The Jews were used for the most arduous forced labor: repairing roads, digging ditches, and clearing forests. Galina Gelfer, who was only 14 at the time, recalls digging the ground, sweeping the streets, cleaning, and washing for the Germans.⁴ Some of those sent to work each day did not return. Those who could not work or walk in the column fast enough were shot. According to Michael Epstein (Epshtein) the policemen insulted and tortured the Jews with more glee than the Germans. According to the account of Juliy Aizenshtadt, on November 29–30, 1941, the Nazis put on a show in Glusk. They collected the spectators at the nursery school and forced them to watch as the Jews were made to carry horse manure in their hats. The Nazis laughed and whipped them. They ordered the hairdresser Maizus to climb a large pear tree and jump down: he broke several bones. Avremul Mashnitser was placed backwards on a horse; then they whipped the horse, which galloped off. Avremul, grabbing for the horse’s tail, hit his head against the sharp corner of a roof, fell off, and died. The Nazis laughed. One of them held a goat and stroked it, as if to demonstrate to everyone present that the animal was better than the Jews.

Many predicted the upcoming extermination. In the ghetto, people heard about the extermination of the Jews in Bobruisk and other places. On the morning of December 2, 1941, the Jews were ordered to gather in the square in front of the commandant’s building and to bring their valuables, linen, and a little food. Then the policemen began searching the Jewish houses. People shouted and ran into the streets while the policemen chased after them, caught up with those who fell behind, beat them, and forced them into the square. A small group of Jews hid in the garage of the military commissariat in Glusk, but they were found.

According to Galina Gelfer, who hid in the attic of an empty store overlooking the assembled Jews, the women and children were loaded into three big black trucks, possibly gas vans, and apparently were killed by gassing before their bodies were thrown into the pits at Myslotino Hill, 1 or 2 kilometers (0.6 or 1.2 miles) from Glusk. As the vans were relatively small, a number of trips were necessary. The Germans, with dogs, and local policemen escorted the remaining Jews to the same pits on foot.⁵ These Jews were then shot at Myslotino Hill. Between 1941 and 1943, this place was often used to murder not only Jews but also those who were deemed to be “suspect” in Glusk and in the Glusk raion. In addition, Jews were also shot and buried at the western outpost near the furniture factory and at the Jewish cemetery. The Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) estimated that the total number of “peaceful citizens” murdered in Glusk was about 3,000;⁶ this figure probably includes more than 1,000 Jewish victims.

Close to 100 Jews escaped owing to special circumstances: expert craftsmen received permission from the Nazis and were allowed to live in their own houses, outside the ghetto area; some left the night before the extermination because they were forewarned by their neighbors; others did not report to the square in front of the commandant’s building on December 2, 1941, but hid and thereby escaped the German trap; and finally, a few wounded Jews even emerged from the pit into which they had been shot.

At the beginning of December 1941, one of the Jewish groups that had escaped from Glusk assembled in the forest and, with the help of local peasants, traveled to the village of Rudobelka, where they hoped to join the partisans. When they arrived, they realized that there were no partisans, but they were also pleasantly surprised to find that there were no Germans either and that the local peasants were willing to share their food with them. In the spring of 1942, more than 20 Jews from Glusk (the Brum family [Chema, Hannah, Girsh, and Tzilia], the brothers Isaac and Boruch Graizel, Michael Epshtein, Alter Epshtein, and others) met in the village of Slavkovichi. There, from local inhabitants and the Soviet soldiers stranded behind German lines in the Glusk raion, the partisan force “Budennyi” was created under the command of Red Army Captain Boris Tzikunkova.

In total, the force consisted of 184 partisans, including more than 20 Jews. Alter Epshtein fled the “ghetto” along with his wife and his 8-year-old son; two of his daughters had been killed during the massacre of the Jews of Glusk. Alter was a tailor for the partisans, while his wife baked bread for them. Several of the Jewish women acted as nurses. Before the war, Markman worked as an arms specialist in the military town of Urech’e, near Starye Dorogi. He repaired the old weapons and created automatic rifles. In April 1944, during the German blockade of the partisan zone, many Jews were killed. Alter, to avoid being captured by the Germans, blew himself up with a grenade.

Another group of Jews from Glusk (Juliy and Naum Aizenshtadt; Kasriel, Abraham, Ida, Yankel, and Rachel Gurevich; and others) became partisans in the “Red October” detachment, which combined with the brigade named after “Shchors” under the command of Fyodor Pavlosky (the first Belorussian partisan to be honored with the title “Hero of the Soviet Union”).⁷ Yankel Gurevich became the commander of their Uritskiy machine-gun platoon (under the command of [End Page 1671] Chavkin). After Belorussia was liberated in July 1944, the Jewish partisans from Glusk were called up to the Soviet army and fought until the end of the war.

Glusk was liberated on June 27, 1944.