VETKA
Pre-1941: Vetka, town and raion center, Gomel’ oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Wetka, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Vetka, raen center, Homel’ voblasts’, Republic of Belarus
Vetka is located 19 kilometers (12 miles) north-northeast of Gomel’ on the Sozh River. In 1926, the Jewish population was 2,094 (35.5 percent), and in 1939, 944 (15.7 percent).
Following the German invasion on June 22, 1941, men of military age were mobilized into the Red Army. Vetka was some distance from the nearest railroad station and therefore was not subjected to aerial bombardment. Despite the absence of an organized evacuation, part of the population succeeded in fleeing. Some left on foot, taking with them the elderly and children on carts, hoping they would soon be able to return.
Vetka was occupied by German forces on August 18, 1941. Within 10 days, a local police force was established, commanded by Vasily Samsonov. In September 1941, on direct orders from the military commandant in Gomel’, the local police registered the entire Jewish population. The Jews continued to live in their own houses.1 According to the book Pamiats’: Vetkauski raen, however, the German authorities ordered that the Jewish population of the entire Rayon be herded into Vetka (probably in September), establishing an open ghetto there that held more than 400 people. The Jews were ordered to stay within this residential area and were made to wear distinguishing marks in the form of the Star of David. Living conditions in the open ghetto were inhumane, and the Jews were regularly compelled to perform hard labor for 12 to 14 hours at a time.2
On December 1, 1941, six officers from the Gomel’ Gestapo arrived in Vetka. They ordered the commandant in Vetka to assemble all the Jews regardless of age, gender, or health for a registration at 8:00 a.m. on December 2. Furthermore, it was stressed that those Jews who disobeyed the order would be shot on the spot. By 10:00 a.m. the following day, the registration of the Jews had been completed on the main square. The keys to every household were confiscated. Then the police searched the Jews’ homes and brought out all those who had not registered. Subsequently, 360 Jews were herded into a stable and imprisoned there—among them were adolescent youths and infants in their mothers’ arms. According to the testimony of eyewitnesses, the Jews screamed: “What are you going to kill us for?”3
The same day that the Jews were isolated, the theft of their belongings began. According to German instructions, all valuable items were taken from the Jews’ homes, placed in eight trucks, and driven to Gomel’. On the evening of December 2, “Max,” the officer in charge, ordered Samsonov, the commander of the police, to assemble all his men on December 3 to assist in the “resettlement” of the Jews.4
The first Aktion in Vetka took place in December 1941 on the orders of Kauman, the acting commandant of Rayon Wetka; Fritz Zhano, the police chief of Rayon Wetka; and Leutnant Max. On the morning of December 3, 1941, all the Jews were formed into a column and led 400 meters (437 yards) from the center of Vetka to a ditch on the southern edge of town close to a large grain elevator. Among the assembled Jews were many women, children, and the elderly. The policemen ordered groups of 10 people to lie down in the ditch. Three Germans standing on the edge of the ditch then shot them with automatic weapons. After the mass shooting, the policemen ordered local citizens to cover the bodies in the mass grave.5 When the German murderers left, the former neighbors of the Jews—policemen, local citizens, and peasants from local villages—divided up whatever belongings remained.
The second Aktion took place in September 1942. Orders from Gomel’ led to 61 Jews and Gypsies being shot about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) outside Vetka. According to the findings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) of the Gomel’ oblast’, in total during the years of German occupation, the Nazis and their accomplices murdered 631 “peaceful citizens” in the Vetka raion.6
According to incomplete data, in the two main Aktions and in other killing operations, more than 500 Jews died; however, until recently only 217 surnames of the victims could be established, including those of 134 women (62 percent) and 69 [End Page 1743] children (32 percent) of up to 15 years of age of both genders. Among the deceased, people aged between 50 and 60 years old made up 8.3 percent, and those older than 60 constituted 18.4 percent.7
Among the few Jews who were able to escape and avoid the shootings was Isaac Pevzner, who was not called up to the army, owing to his nearsightedness, and was unable to evacuate Vetka because of his elderly parents. During the two years of occupation, his wife, Anastasia Nabokina, hid Pevzner in Vetka (first in the cellar of their house and later in a ditch in the garden). Because she refused to betray the hiding place of her husband, their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter was killed in Anastasia’s arms.8
Another known survivor was Elena Markovich-Shanovich. The Germans murdered her father David in the autumn of 1941. Elena’s mother was told that David had committed the crimes of being born a Jew and of serving in the Red Army. Thanks to neighbors who decided to help her, the girl was saved. They drove her to the town of Soboli, and when the Germans arrived there, they took her to another town from which Elena ran into the woods and joined the partisans.9
The Survivors Registry of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has information on more than 15 survivors from Vetka. Of these Isaak Gutin (born 1924) and Semin Starin (born 1933) apparently remained in or around Vetka during the German occupation. Most of the others were evacuated to the east in time or were in other cities during the German occupation.10
Vetka was liberated on September 28, 1943. Some of the Jews (about 30 families) returned from their evacuation to the east, but most soon moved to Gomel’.
SOURCES
Apart from general works on the Holocaust in Belarus, such as Marat Botvinnik’s Pamiatniki genotsida evreev Belarusi (Minsk: Belaruskaia Navuka, 2000), there is also an article in Russian dealing specifically with the Jews of Vetka by David Fabrikant, “Jewish Vetka: History and Geography,” Evreiskii kamerton (Tel Aviv), September 6, 2001. The ghetto in Vetka is also mentioned in the local history volume: Pamiats’: Vetkauski raen, vol. 1 (Minsk: BelTA, 1997), p. 192; 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), p. 1390; and Marat Botvinnik, Kholokost v knigakh “Pamiat’” Respubliki Belarus’ (Minsk: Kovcheg, 2008), pp. 83–84.
Documentation on the fate of the Jews of Vetka during World War II can be found in the following archives: AMVDGO (12-1/8-1, vol. 1); PALS; and YVA (M-33/461).
NOTES
1. Zbor pomnikau historyi i kul’tury Belarusi: Homel’skaia voblasts’ (Minsk, 1985), p. 119.
2. Pamiats’: Vetkauski raen, vol. 1, p. 192; see also Botvinnik, Kholokost v knigakh “Pamiat’” Respubliki Belarus’, pp. 83–84.
3. YVA, M-33/461, p. 3.
4. Pamiats’: Vetkauski raen, vol. 1, p. 192.
5. PALS, information from the political committee of the Vetka raion, November 3, 1992.
6. AMVDGO, 12-1/8-1, vol. 1, p. 118.
7. Author’s estimate based on materials in the book Pamiats’: Vetkauski raen, vol. 2 (Minsk: BelTA, 1998), pp. 107–109.
8. Fabrikant, “Jewish Vetka: History and Geography.”
9. Pamiats’: Vetkauski raen, vol. 2, p. 28.
10. See Benjamin and Vladka Meed Registry of Jewish Holocaust Survivors (United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 2000), vol. 3, p. 402, and vol. 4, p. 714. An updated electronic version of the Survivors Registry is available on the Web at www.ushmm.org.
