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

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

Gorki is located 60 kilometers (38 miles) northeast of Mogilev. In 1926, there were 2,343 Jews in Gorki, or 27.8 percent of the total population; in Gory, 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) east of Gorki, there were 355 Jews. In 1939, 2,031 Jews lived in the town, making up 16.3 percent of the population. The Jewish population of the Gorki raion (without the town of Gorki) numbered 510 people, the largest number of whom lived in the small town of Gory and the village of Lenino (12 kilometers [7.5 miles] northeast of Gorki).

Gorki is the site of the Belorussian Agricultural Academy. Thus the authorities were most interested in evacuating the academy’s equipment, students, and workers, including many Jews among the latter, who were evacuated in advance and in an organized manner. On June 27, Gorki underwent the first air raid, suffering heavy bombing. The authorities called on the population not to panic, which was interpreted as a prohibition on leaving the town without permission, but at the same time they started to organize the evacuation of state property and officials. On July 3 and 6, 1941, respectively, two evacuation trains left the local railway station, taking mainly students and workers from the academy. Then the raion party committee left Gorki. Some of the local Jews who did not work or study at the academy tried to evacuate on their own, mainly on foot.

Although many Jews left the town after July 6, the main flight from Gorki, according to eyewitness accounts, took place on July 12, hours before the town’s capture by the Germans. Hundreds of people, both Jews and non-Jews, tried to leave; some of them perished during an aerial bombardment that day, many were intercepted by advancing German forces, and others succeeded in fleeing the town.

The German forces (XLVI Army Corps of the 4th Panzer Army, formerly 2nd Panzer Group) entered Gorki from the south on July 12, 1941. They were followed by units of the IX Army Corps, belonging to the 2nd Army. From August 1941, Gorki was under the authority of Rear Area, Army Group Center. This area was the realm of the 286th Security Division; Gorki was under the control of Feldkommandantur 199.

When the Germans were entering Gorki, two young Komsomol members, “carrying out Stalin’s order” (regarding scorched-earth tactics), set fire to the town, and part of Gorki burned. One of the arsonists, Faikin, was Jewish. According to a survivor’s account, he managed to hide in the countryside but in 1942 was found by the Germans, most probably after some locals denounced him. One witness says that in 1942 she saw Faikin hanging on the gallows, with a board on his chest bearing the inscription: “I am a yid. When the Germans were coming, I carried out Stalin’s order to burn down the town.”¹ [End Page 1675]

During the first days, the occupiers assembled the Jews on the square in front of the academy, formed them into a line, and announced their new regulations concerning the Jews. At this time, they imposed the wearing of “Jewish Stars” on clothing and established a Jewish Council (Judenrat) in Gorki.²

Despite the fact that some witnesses mention a ghetto in Gorki, most probably there was no formal ghetto in the town. However, since much of the town had burned, the Jews were collected together in the area of town known as Mstislavskaia Hill, or Mstislavka, on Mstislavskaia and Internatsionalnaia Streets. The Jewish residential area in Mstislavka was not fenced in,³ but Jews were not permitted, or feared, to leave the area. Survivor accounts reflect a degree of fear towards the locals felt by the Jews.

Einsatzkommando 8 organized the mass murder of the Jews in Gorki on October 7, 1941.⁴ In the morning, the Germans and Belorussian police assembled all the Jews at the Mstislavka area and escorted them to the Belyi Ruchei Forest, where they shot them all. Einsatzgruppe B reported that 2,200 Jews had been “liquidated in eight localities” in the Gorki area. It is unclear how many of these Jews were from Gorki. The Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) estimated the number of Jewish victims in the town at 300 people.⁵

Elsewhere in the raion, no fewer than 34 Jews were killed in Gory, and at least 19 Jews were killed in the suburban kolkhoz “3-ia Piatiletka” on the outskirts at Sloboda, most probably in August or September 1941. After an initial killing Aktion, a small ghetto composed of only two houses was established in Lenino for the few surviving Jews and those from nearby villages; they were killed later, in Gorki.⁶ No fewer than 20 Jews were killed in the village of Rudkovshchina, 22 kilometers (14 miles) northwest of Gorki along the P-15 road. Two Jews were killed in nearby Vereshchaki. One Jew was killed in the Sharipy sel’sovet (12 to 13 kilometers [about 8 miles] northwest of Gorki). In the village of Naprasnovka, Maslaki sel’sovet (25 kilometers [15.5 miles] west-northwest of Gorki), according to the interrogations made by the ChGK, on March 22, 1942, German forces killed 250 Jews; before the massacre, they imposed a “contribution” in gold and valuables on the Jews and beat them severely. The victims were buried in eight pits, 200 meters (219 yards) west of Naprasnovka.⁷