KRASNOPOL’E
[End Page 1688] Pre-1941: Krasnopol’e, town and raion center, Mogilev oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1943: Krassnopolje, Rayon center, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Krassnapolle, raen center, Mahiliou voblasts’, Republic of Belarus
Krasnopol’e is located about 110 kilometers (69 miles) southeast of Mogilev. According to the census of 1939, there were 1,181 Jews living in Krasnopol’e (33.1 percent of the total population).
German forces occupied the town on August 15, 1941, roughly seven weeks after the German attack on the Soviet Union (June 22). During this period, a large proportion of the Jews in Krasnopol’e managed to evacuate to the east, and the Soviets began to induct eligible men into the Red Army. Probably around 400 Jews remained in the town at the start of the German occupation. Throughout the occupation (from August 15, 1941, until October 1, 1943), the German military Feldkommandantur in Propoisk governed Krasnopol’e. It established a raion administrative council and a police force (Ordnungsdienst), staffed by local citizens. In October 1941, Feldkommandantur 544 was based in Propoisk.1
Following orders issued by the German military administration, shortly after the start of the occupation, the Rayon council organized the registration of the Jews and required that they wear distinguishing marks on their chests. The German authorities also made Jews ages 14 to 60 perform various forms of heavy labor.
The occupying authorities created a ghetto in Krasnopol’e in September 1941.2 Units of Police Battalion 322 liquidated the ghetto in two Aktions on October 22 and 25, 1941. Just prior to this, the German authorities forbade Jews to leave the ghetto.3 In the first Aktion, the 2nd Company of Police Battalion 322 seized and shot 121 Jewish men; in the second Aktion, the 1st Company of the same battalion shot 3 Jewish men and 216 Jewish women. Altogether, the Germans massacred 340 Jews in the two Aktions. The German report gives as the reason for the shootings “incitement to insurrection” (Aufwiegelung) and “support for the partisans.” The Jews were shot and buried about 700 meters (766 yards) to the northwest of the town.4 Jewish children left behind were shot about two months later.5
SOURCES
Information concerning the extermination of the Jews in Krasnopol’e can be found in the following publications: Pamiats’: Historyka-dakumental’naia khronika haradou i raenau Belarusi: Krassnapolle raen (Minsk, 2001), pp. 198–199; and Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, eds., The Black Book: The Ruthless Murder of Jews by German-Fascist Invaders Throughout the Temporarily-Occupied Regions of the Soviet Union and in the Death Camps of Poland During the War of 1941–1945, trans. John Glad and James S. Levine (New York: Holocaust Library, 1981), p. 236.
Documents relating to the persecution and extermination of the town’s Jewish citizens can be found in the following archives: GAMO; GARF (7021-88-40); NARB (861-1-9); USHMM (RG-48.004M); and VHAP.
NOTES
1. BA-MH, RH 26-221/14b, map, rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte, as of October 9, 1941.
2. NARB, 861-1-9, pp. 329, 333 reverse side, and 336 reverse side.
3. Ehrenburg and Grossman, The Black Book, p. 236.
4. Kriegstagebuch des Polizei-Bataillons 322, entry dated October 22, 1941, in USHMM, RG-48.004M, reel 2. Soviet sources estimate the number of victims considerably higher (1,000 to 1,500) and report further anti-Jewish Aktions in 1942 and 1943; e.g., Marat Botvinnik, Pamiatniki genotsida evreev Belarusi (Minsk: Belaruskaia Navuka, 2000), pp. 292, 300. The evidence for this, however, is unreliable.
5. Ehrenburg and Grossman, The Black Book, p. 236.
