KOPYS’
Pre-1941: Kopys’, town, Orsha raion, Vitebsk oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Kopys, Rayon Orscha, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Orsha raen, Vitsebsk voblasts’, Republic of Belarus
Kopys’ is situated about 22 kilometers (14 miles) south of Orsha. In 1939, the Jewish population of Kopys’ was 405, 9.9 percent of the total.
The Germans captured the town on July 11–13, 1941, in the course of very heavy fighting (it was in this sector of the front that the XLVII and XXIV Motorized Army Corps of Panzer Group 2 had to force the crossing of the Dnieper River). Only a few local Jews escaped to the east before the Germans arrived. In the first half of August, a detachment of Einsatzgruppe B “liquidated seven [former Communist] functionaries in Kopys’ for alleged arson and plundering.”1 The Jews were required to wear distinguishing armbands and a yellow star on their backs as well.
In December 1941, the German authorities resettled the Jews of Kopys’ into a small ghetto consisting of several buildings in the area of a linen factory, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) outside the town. Local witnesses indicate that the area was fenced and guarded by the local police. In total, at least 250 Jews were confined within the ghetto.2 One survivor recalls that there were about 10 people per room in the ghetto [End Page 1685] and that some had to sleep on the floor. The Jews obtained food by bartering items with the local population. Rumors spread in the ghetto about the murder of Jews in larger towns, but people feared that there was nowhere for them to go. On the eve of the liquidation of the ghetto, a few Jews escaped into the surrounding countryside. For example, Alexander Shmyrkin fled with his school friend after his mother told him to run.3
On January 14, 1942, a German “punitive squad” (in the words of Belorussian eyewitnesses) assisted by local policemen carried out a mass shooting of the town’s Jews. The pits close to the area of the linen factory had been prepared in advance. The murderers picked out groups of 15 people, ordered them to undress, forced them to lie in the pit, and shot them with pistols. According to the estimate of the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK), around 230 Jews were killed in this way. The majority of the victims were women, children, and the elderly. The list of victims compiled by the ChGK contains the names of 143 Jews. Some Jews were spared from this massacre, most probably “specialists.” For example, the tailor Yevel (Yoel) Melikhan and his two sons were not killed until May 15, 1942.4
SOURCES
Most of the information on the Kopys’ ghetto is based on interviews conducted by historian Gennadii Vinnitsa with local residents in the 1990s, published in his books Gorech’ i bol’ (Orsha, 1998), pp. 93–95, and Slovo pamiati (Orsha: Orshan. Tip., 1997), pp. 53–54. The Kopys’ ghetto is also mentioned in the following publications: Marat Botvinnik, Pamiatniki genotsida evreev Belarusi (Minsk: Belaruskaia Navuka, 2000), p. 177; Shmuel Spector and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds., The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem; New York: New York University Press, 2001), pp. 657–658; and Wila Orbach, “The Destruction of the Jews in the Nazi-Occupied Territories of the USSR,” Soviet Jewish Affairs 2:6 (1976): 32.
Documentation from the ChGK for the Orsha raion can be found in the following archives: GARF (7021-84-10); USHMM; VHF (# 39401); and YVA.
NOTES
1. Peter Klein, ed., Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion 1941/42 (Berlin: Hentrich, 1997), p. 137, Tätigkeitsund Lagebericht Nr. 2 der Einsatzgruppen (July 29 to August 14, 1941).
2. Vinnitsa, Slovo pamiati, p. 53.
3. VHF, # 39401, testimony of Alexander Shmyrkin. Shmyrkin, however, claims that the ghetto was not enclosed or guarded, and he dates the liquidation Aktion in November 1942, which seems unlikely.
4. GARF, 7021-84-10, statement by Khaya Melikhan.
