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

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German propaganda placard in Smolensk, 1941–1943. The slogans at top and bottom read, “The Yids —Your Eternal Enemies!” and “Stalin and the Yids Together —One Gang of Criminals!”

COURTESY OF FRANK WÜNSCHE, BERLIN, PHOTO NUMBER 0001.000480

Pre-1941: RSFSR, Soviet Union; 1941–1944: partly under German occupation, initially Rear Area, Army Groups Center and North (rückwärtige Heeresgebiete Mitte und Nord), then 1942–1943, also Rear Area, Army Group B (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet B) on the southern front and in the northern Caucasus; post-1991: Russian Federation

Between July 1941 and December 1942, the Germans established around 50 ghettos in the occupied territory of the Russian Federation, which probably held some 22,000 Jews. In total, there were somewhere between 70,000 and 120,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust in the territory of the present-day Russian Federation; therefore, probably around one quarter of the victims were confined within a ghetto prior to being killed.¹

Most of the ghettos established by the Germans in occupied Russian territory were located on the eastern fringe of the former Pale of Settlement (in the former Vitebsk and Chernigov gubernias), to which nearly all Jews in Tsarist Russia were confined up to 1917. The area to the east of the Belorussian cities of Mogilev and Vitebsk, comprising the western part of the Smolensk oblast’, was soon occupied by the German Army in July 1941. In this region, the Germans established 20 ghettos, most of them within weeks of their arrival. Einsatzgruppe B, initially under the command of Arthur Nebe,² which was responsible for security operations in the area behind Army Group Center, reported on September 23, 1941, that in all towns visited by the Sonderkommandos and Einsatzkommandos Jewish ghettos had been established, and in larger places, Jewish Councils as well.³ For example, the ghetto in Tartarsk was established in September 1941 by a detachment of Vorkommando Moskau, which coordinated the necessary arrangements with the local mayor and the head of the Russian local police (Ordnungsdienst, OD).

Just to the south of the Smolensk oblast’, in the western part of the present-day Briansk oblast’ (in 1939, part of the Orel’ oblast’), which the Germans occupied during the course of August 1941, they established another 12 ghettos (including larger ghettos of around 1,000 people or more in Klintsy, Starodub, Pochep, and Novozybkov), most in the fall of 1941. Sonderkommando 7b, commanded by SS-Sturmbannführer Günther Rausch, based in Klintsy from the end of September 1941, was the main unit responsible for establishing ghettos in this region.

German forces also established a number of smaller ghettos from the summer of 1941 in the region between Smolensk and Leningrad, behind Army Groups Center and North, on a more ad hoc basis: 4 in the former Leningrad oblast’ and 10 in the former Kalinin oblast’. The Commander of Rear Area, Army Group North issued an order on September 3, 1941, noting that the Army High Command (OKH) had ordered that ghettos could be established in places with a large Jewish population, insofar as time and personnel were available, but that this was not to be seen as a priority.⁴ Nevertheless, some ghettos were established in the area for relatively small populations of Jews (between 30 and 150). The two largest ghettos in the region were in Nevel’, holding 640 Jews (established by Einsatzgruppe B), and in Pskov with 232 Jews, under the direction of Sonderkommando 1a (Einsatzgruppe A).

As German forces advanced east again after the start of Operation Typhoon (the planned encirclement of Moscow) on September 30, they established two more ghettos immediately behind the advancing troops in Kaluga (in 1939, in the Tula oblast’) and Dmitriev-L’govskii (Kursk oblast’) in November 1941. It is interesting to note that only the Sonderkommandos of Einsatzgruppe B followed closely behind the advancing front, while the Einsatzkommandos remained in place, consolidating control over the territory already conquered, with a major focus on the destruction of the Jews.⁵

In some larger Russian cities, however, such as Briansk, Orel, and Rostov on Don, as well as in many towns, no ghettos were established. Here the remaining Jews were killed in mass shooting Aktions; or in many places, such as Gzhatsk, Mozhaisk, and Iukhnov, the German Einsatzkommandos reported that almost all the Jews had been evacuated or had fled.⁶

In some locations the Jews were confined in an improvised manner for only a few days prior to being murdered. In the town of Mtsensk, Orel oblast’, the Germans confined the Jews in an unheated school building for a week without food, before escorting them out of the town to shoot them in January 1942.⁷ In Pushkin, a town about 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of Leningrad, more than 100 Jews, composed mostly of women, children, and the elderly, were confined for about one week in the cellars of the Catherine Palace, before a detachment of Sonderkommando 1b shot them in groups on the palace grounds.⁸

Precise figures on the number of Jews able to evacuate from specific locations in the Germans’ path are not available. From Rudnia and Liubavichi in the Smolensk oblast’, where ghettos were subsequently established, it seems that roughly half of the Jews managed to flee. From Smolensk, it is estimated that over 13,000 of the city’s 14,800 Jews managed to leave in time, probably assisted by the protracted fighting for the city. From some isolated towns and villages, without good communications, such as Zakharino, the proportion that fled was much lower (only 10 or 20 percent); and some places saw an influx of refugees prior to the Germans’ arrival, as Jews fleeing from the west were trapped by the rapid German advance. [End Page 1782]

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Mug shot of Franz Six, commanding officer of Vorkommando Moskau, during the Einsatzgruppen Trial at Nuremberg, 1947.

USHMM WS #09923, COURTESY OF BENJAMIN FERENCZ

The ghettos served several functions, including isolating and controlling the Jews. They facilitated the seizure of remaining Jewish property or other resources, including labor. Ghettoization was also useful preparation for the massacres to come, as it demoralized and weakened the Jewish population, who received little or no food. However, the sequence of ghetto establishment, preceded or followed in some places by smaller Aktions against male Jews, allegedly for acts of resistance or infractions against German regulations, before the ghetto liquidation Aktions, indicates that German genocidal plans were pursued in stages. A number of ghettos existed into the spring or summer of 1942. In particular, the large ghetto in Smolensk, where about 1,500 Jews were exploited systematically for forced labor, was not liquidated until mid-July 1942.

In general, ghettos were not established behind the German advance on Stalingrad in the summer and fall of 1942, mainly because large numbers of Jews were not encountered. Exceptions were isolated towns on the German route of advance, mostly in the northern Caucasus, which had populations of Mountain Jews, local Ashkenazim, and refugees from the western regions of the USSR. Four places have been identified in this region where Jews were concentrated under ghetto-like conditions in the second half of 1942: in Kagal’nitskaia (for about a month), in Elista (for only 10 days), and in Nal’chik and Essentuki (each for about 6 weeks). It appears that the Mountain Jews were “ghettoized” in Nal’chik but excluded from the killings on the recommendation of the head of Einsatzgruppe D, SS-Oberführer Bierkamp, as they were viewed rather as a local mountain tribe.⁹

The Wehrmacht was responsible for imposing a series of anti-Jewish measures following its arrival in the territory of the Russian Federation. These can be documented effectively from surviving German placards (Bekanntmachungen). In Demidov, on August 6, 1941, the Ortskommandant ordered all Jews over the age of 10 to wear yellow markers 10 centimeters (4 inches) in diameter. Jews of both sexes were required to perform forced labor. The ritual slaughtering of animals for kosher meat was also forbidden.¹⁰ Similar orders were issued in Kaluga on November 8, 1941, together with the appointment of a Jewish elder; Jews were prohibited from leaving the city or having relations with non-Jews, and the establishment of a ghetto was decreed.¹¹

One of the first ghettos established by the Germans on Russian territory was in the “Sadki” district of Smolensk, on August 5, 1941. It was under the control of the local Russian administration, which ordered the evacuation of the [End Page 1783] non-Jewish population from the ghetto area. The ghetto was surrounded with barbed wire and guarded by the OD.¹² From the beginning, Jews caught leaving the ghetto or not wearing the Star of David were to be arrested and shot.¹³

Other than for Smolensk, the process of ghettoization is documented for only a few locations, including Rudnia. Here the Ortskommandantur ordered all the Jews into a ghetto in August 1941, threatening to shoot those who did not comply. The OD used physical force to intimidate the Jews and confiscated Jewish property during the transfer, including all livestock. The ghetto, located on one street, consisted of 20 half-destroyed houses fenced off with barbed wire and guarded by German soldiers and the OD. Around 1,200 Jews, including some refugees, were assembled on the market square and herded into the ghetto. Initially, the Jews could still come and go freely, and some received food from non-Jewish neighbors.¹⁴

A variety of different structures were used as ghetto sites. The typical small wooden houses, or cottages, common in the region, were used in a number of towns, including Smolensk, Rudnia, and Starodub. In Karachev and Krasnyi, the ghetto consisted only of an open-air holding camp with no shelter, similar to many camps for Soviet POWs. In other ghettos, such as Nevel’ and Starodub, due to insufficient housing, some Jews had to sleep in dugouts or barns. In Opochka and Pochep, former barracks were used; in Zlynka, a Machine Tractor Station (MTS) was used; and in Mglin, a prison was converted into a ghetto. Several smaller ghettos, including Dmitriev-L’govskii and Loknia, were established by forcing all the Jews into a single house. Jews were sometimes brought into the ghettos from surrounding villages; this is documented for Klimovo and Monastyrshchina. The population of most ghettos was composed primarily of women, children, and the elderly, with only a few males of working age.

Living conditions in the ghettos were horrific. The inmates of the Rudnia ghetto suffered from overcrowding and poor sanitation, receiving rations of only 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of bread per day. All Jews had to surrender any valuables at gunpoint, and the more prosperous members of the community were taken hostage and held for ransom.¹⁵ In the Velizh ghetto, about 500 people lived in pigsties, furnished with bunk beds, as the 27 houses were all full. In the Kaluga ghetto, established in a former nunnery, although ration cards were issued, no food was distributed to the Jews. Even children in the Kaluga ghetto were forced to work, removing bodies from the streets. Children also sneaked out of the ghetto to scavenge for food.¹⁶ In most ghettos that existed for more than a few weeks, there were deaths from starvation and disease. Reports from several ghettos, including those in Smolensk, Krasnyi, Petrovichi, and Khislavichi, mention the rape of Jewish women by members of the OD and also Germans.

The Soviet evacuation of most heavy industry during their retreat and the severe food shortages in the towns meant that there was no large-scale use of Jews as a professional labor force. Indeed, in Smolensk, Jewish craftsmen were ordered to surrender their tools for use by the non-Jewish population. Nevertheless, the Jews in most ghettos of the region were exploited for forced labor on immediate tasks such as road repairs, clearing rubble, loading railway cars, and also digging defensive trenches. Some assigned labor tasks, such as cleaning toilets, served more to humiliate those workers. In several ghettos, including those in Klintsy and Rzhev, selected skilled craftsmen were saved for a time after most of the Jews had been shot. In Staraia Russa, Jews living outside the ghetto in mixed marriages were arrested and shot one month after the ghetto’s liquidation.

Little is known about the Jewish Councils in Germanoccupied Russian territory. Most comprised just a few members, and in some ghettos there was only a single Jewish elder. As elsewhere, their tasks included the implementation of German orders, especially the organization of forced labor, meeting German demands for “contributions,” and providing social services, including rudimentary medical care. This latter reason may explain the strong representation of physicians, including some women, on the councils. Ilya Al’tman has identified the professions of 19 Jewish Council members from more than 10 ghettos; of these, 11 were doctors or dentists. Other professions represented included a bookkeeper as the Jewish community’s representative in Kaluga and a teacher in Velizh.¹⁷

Examples of resistance are known for several ghettos. Some acts of resistance are cited by the Einsatzgruppen as the alleged pretext for extermination Aktions. Such references must be treated with caution, but the descriptions may in part be based on actual events. Einsatzgruppen report no. 124, on October 25, 1941, noted:

The staff unit (Gruppenstab) [of Einsatzgruppe B] and Vorkommando Moskau carried out an operation against the Jews in Tatarsk. The Jews had begun to leave the ghetto of their own volition, and return to their former residences. Russians had occupied their apartments in the meantime, and the Jews tried to drive them out. Therefore, the place was systematically searched and the Jews gathered in the market square. Some of them had fled, and had to be hunted out of the nearby forest. In punishment for not following the orders of the German Security Police, all the Jewish men in Tatarsk and three women were shot.¹⁸

In Rudnia, the Germans raided the home of a young Jew who had been studying to be a radio technician. They arrested and shot him for not surrendering his radio, together with another 15 to 20 young Jews. The Germans also discovered a pistol in the Rudnia ghetto and shot 100 Jews, ostensibly for concealing weapons.¹⁹ Shortly after this, Ida Brion fled the ghetto after hearing from escapees of the Vitebsk ghetto that all the Jews would be shot unless they escaped.²⁰ Jews escaped from several Russian ghettos just before or during their liquidation, with the aim of going into hiding or joining the Soviet partisans. Outside the ghetto, they had to contend with patrols of the Wehrmacht and the OD, hunting for escapees. [End Page 1784]

The advance of the Red Army in the winter of 1941–1942 successfully liberated three ghettos in the region from the Germans, saving most of their inmates from certain death. These were the ghettos of Il’ino, Kaluga, and Usviaty.²¹ Unfortunately, the liberation of these three ghettos was quite exceptional. In Velizh, the Germans and Russian police burned down the ghetto on January 30, 1942, just as Soviet forces were attacking the town, and only a few dozen of the ghetto’s Jews managed to survive.

The Soviet counteroffensive may, however, have delayed the liquidation of some ghettos by a few weeks. Sonderkommando 7a, for example, was forced to retreat hastily by the Soviet advances in late December, its men suffering from cold and exhaustion as many vehicles broke down. It was then transferred to Klintsy further to the rear to rest and recover, only arriving there in late February. Thus the Red Army’s advance rendered it largely inactive for almost two months.²² In the ensuing weeks from March 1942, this unit murdered nearly all the remaining Jews in the area around Klintsy in a series of Aktions coordinated by the unit’s energetic new commander, Albert Rapp. These Aktions included the destruction of ghettos in Pochep, Unecha, Starodub, and Mglin.²³

The ghettos in Russian territory existed for only a few weeks or months. They were established just as the Einsatzgruppen, Order Police, and SS forces were escalating the genocide from the shooting of groups of male Jews and alleged Communists to the destruction of entire Jewish communities. Most ghetto liquidation Aktions were organized by the respective Einsatzkommandos, but they also required support from the OD and local Wehrmacht forces. The murder of the Jews of Gusino, for example, just west of Smolensk, can be reconstructed from the testimony of German soldiers given in postwar war crime investigations. The Jews were driven out of the ghetto to a pit through a narrow cordon formed by soldiers of a Landesschützen Company. The pit was only about 150 meters (492 feet) from the ghetto, close to the company’s quarters in the local school. The Jews were then shot in the back of the neck in groups of 2 or 3 by two SS men on the edge of the pit. The German forces murdered more than 200 Jews in the Aktion, which lasted several hours. The Jews remained orderly. However, some soldiers recall a Jewish girl calling out: “Please don’t shoot me, I will do any work!” The clothing of the Jewish victims was subsequently distributed among the local Russian population.²⁴

Little evidence has remained concerning the ghettos on occupied Russian soil. Just occasionally, however, these ghettos are mentioned in sources that reflect the perspective of so-called bystanders. Local resident Nikolai Karpov in Roslavl’, who was subsequently deported to Germany for forced labor, recalls in his published memoir learning about the clearance of the ghetto. Neighbors reported with horror that all the inhabitants, including women, children, and the elderly, had been shot near the old Jewish cemetery. The graves had been hastily covered with earth, and Russian policemen had plundered the houses. Karpov observed one policeman attempting to drag away a cow that had belonged to a Jewish tailor, but the cow resisted, not wanting to go with someone it did not know.²⁵ In the two months following the Aktion, about 20 more Jews were brought into Roslavl’ by Wehrmacht patrols in the surrounding countryside and placed in the SD prison. These Jews had been denounced by local inhabitants and handed over to the Wehrmacht. They were subsequently shot by the German Security Police.²⁶

Only a few hundred Jews managed to survive from the ghettos in German-occupied Russian territory, either hiding among the local population or serving with the Soviet partisans.²⁷ The experience of Solomon Bazhalkin, a 14-year-old boy who escaped from the Unecha ghetto, reflects the difficulties Jews faced in trying to survive. He knocked on people’s doors in the surrounding villages, saying he was an orphan. Some local inhabitants offered him food and occasionally shelter for a short while; but usually he had to move on again, as people suspected that he was a Jew. On one occasion, he was denounced to the police, but he successfully convinced them he was an orphan and was released. Subsequently he linked up with the Soviet partisans, as did many of the surviving escapees from ghettos in Russia.

The last occupying German forces were driven from Russian territory in July 1944 with the capture by the Red Army of the town of Pskov.²⁸