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

Pre-1941: Obol’, village, Shumilino raion, Vitebsk oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Obol, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Obal’, Shumilina raen, Vitsebsk voblasts’, Republic of Belarus

Obol’ is located 35 kilometers (22 miles) southeast of Polotsk. On the eve of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Obol’ had a Jewish population of several dozen people.

German armed forces captured the village on July 8, 1941, about three weeks after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. During this intervening period, some Jews managed to evacuate to the east, while men eligible for military service were drafted into the Red Army. About 10 or 15 Jews remained in the village at the onset of the German occupation.

During the entire occupation period, from July 1941 to June 1944, a German military commandant’s office (Ortskommandantur) governed the village. The German military administration created a village authority and a police force (Ordnungsdienst) made up of local residents.

Soon after the occupation of Obol’, the Ortskommandantur ordered the village authority to conduct the registration and marking of the Jews and required them to perform forced labor. In the fall of 1941, all the remaining Jews in the village were placed in a ghetto, for which one small house was allocated. The ghetto was in existence for about seven months; during that time, several Jews died. On June 2, 1942, the Germans and local police liquidated the ghetto, shooting all six of its Jewish inmates at the cemetery.