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

Pre-1941: Zhuravichi, village and raion center, Gomel’ oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1943: Shurawitschi, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Zhuravichy, Rohachou raen, Homel’ voblasts’, Republic of Belarus

Zhuravichi is located 94 kilometers (58 miles) north-northwest of Gomel’. In 1939, the Jewish population was 616, 25.7 percent of the total.

When hostilities began, all the males eligible for military service joined the Red Army. In late June 1941, a local combat battalion of 180 men was formed, commanded by a man named Gerasimov, which performed security tasks in Zhuravichi.¹ As Zhuravichi was not on the railroad, it did not suffer from aerial bombardment, nor did many refugees from places further west arrive there, who might spread news about the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews. Soviet officials did not order an official evacuation, and only a small part of the Jewish population managed to leave the town in time. They left on foot, dragging along the elderly and children in carts, hoping for a speedy return.

German forces entered Zhuravichi on August 14, 1941, and the German military administration appointed new local officials during the first 10 days of the occupation. A man named Filipchenko became the Rayon head (Rayonchef). The first chief of police, Vakhnalev (September–December 1941), was later replaced by Grigorii Alesiuk (December 1941–February 1943), a former district militia officer in the Zhuravichi People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD).² A number of local residents were recruited to serve in the police.

In the summer of 1942, in connection with the strengthening of the partisan movement, Alesiuk called on the youth to join the Zhuravichi police, increasing police manpower from about 100 up to 500 men.³

Until September 1941, the Jews remained in their own homes. They were forbidden to appear in public places and to converse or trade with Belorussians and Russians. The Jews were required to perform forced labor for the German military authorities and the local administration.

A ghetto was set up in the town in September 1941. The Germans ordered Vakhnalev, assisted by the police force, to round up all the Jews of Zhuravichi and the village of Novye Zhuravichi,⁴ a total of 170 people, and herd them into the garden of the kolkhoz named for the “Twelfth Anniversary of the October Revolution.” They were quartered in six buildings, some of which had previously served as a school. The ghetto, which was guarded by local police, remained in existence for about four months. Food was scarce, the buildings were not heated, and no medical assistance was provided. The Jews presumed what their fate would likely be, but they did not escape because they were bound to each other by mutual responsibilities. The Germans appointed Jewish “elders,” who maintained order, received demands for forced labor, and were made personally responsible for ensuring that no Jew escaped or hid.⁵

In the final days of December 1941, the German military administration (Ortskommandantur) in Zhuravichi ordered a pit to be prepared for the mass killing of the Jews. Alesiuk allocated 40 policemen, 10 of whom were sent to dig the pit, while the rest were posted in a circle around the ghetto as guards. The Jews were locked in the barn and kept there until the Germans arrived. Then 12 Germans, probably of the Security Police, drove up to the barn in a covered truck and began loading the prisoners for transport to the pit. They brought out 30 people at a time, loaded them in the truck, and drove them beyond the Zhuravichi hospital into a pine forest. [End Page 1752]

Most of the victims were old people, women, and children. Among others, they included Iankel’ Aleshinskii (70 years of age), his wife, his son, and daughter-in-law, and a man named Bogorad (38–40 years old) with his sister (26). Among the victims were also the kolkhoznik Mikhail Mazurov and the barber Moisei Starovoitov, who were both married to Russian women and had taken their surnames. Five or six trips in total were made that day. The doomed prisoners were led to the edge of the pit and shot with rifles and submachine guns in the presence of the policemen. The police buried the corpses. A number of local policemen assisted the Germans in carrying out the mass shooting of Jews in Zhuravichi.⁶

Alesiuk arranged for victims’ belongings to be guarded, and two days later the Jewish possessions were taken to the Rayon authority. The best items were appropriated by the Germans, and the others were sold at a store, with the profits going into the coffers of the Rayon authority.⁷

Soviet forces liberated Zhuravichi on November 25, 1943. It was one of the first populated localities in Belorussia to be liberated. The Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK), which reached Zhuravichi in March 1944, determined that during the occupation of the town and the raion of the same name, the Nazis and their accomplices had killed 2,477 civilians, including 144 people in Zhuravichi itself. The population of the Zhuravichi raion decreased from 42,298 in May 1941 to 28,100 in May 1944: 66.4 percent of the pre-war level.⁸ Some of the Nazis’ accomplices, including G.V. Alesiuk, were arrested and tried.⁹