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

Pre-1941: Khislavichi, town and raion center, Smolensk oblast’, RSFSR; 1941–1943: Chislawitschi, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Khislavichi, Russian Federation

Khislavichi is located 75 kilometers (47 miles) south of Smolensk on the Sozh River. In 1939, 1,427 Jews were living in Khislavichi.

Units of German Army Group Center entered Khislavichi on July 16, 1941. As early as the first few days of the German occupation, the Jewish population was subjected to robbery, assault, and other forms of human degradation.¹

At the end of August and in early September 1941, the headquarters unit of Vorkommando Moskau (a detachment of Einsatzgruppe B) ordered the registration and marking of all the Jews of Khislavichi. On the orders of the Vorkommando, the German military administration resettled the Jews in a ghetto and required them to perform forced labor. A few weeks later, members of the Vorkommando were responsible for shooting the members of the Judenrat and 20 other Jews.²

The Germans established the ghetto on the outskirts of town in older houses next to the Jewish cemetery and the synagogue. A barbed-wire fence surrounded the ghetto. Nobody could enter or leave the ghetto without permission. The ghetto inmates had to wear distinguishing markings: a yellow ring with a dark sign in the middle. Around 800 people were moved into the ghetto, where they lived in only 40 or 50 houses, with roughly 25 to 30 people in each.³ Among the prisoners of the ghetto were many children of various ages.

All property remained in the Jews’ vacated homes when they were forcibly resettled into the ghetto. The property passed into the hands of the German military administration and local Russian policemen, who then occupied the best of the confiscated Jewish homes.

Sometime in the second half of September or early October 1941, the Germans rounded up Jewish men, telling them they were needed for work. Then they transported the men to a Machine Tractor Station (MTS) and shot them in a large ditch. According to Soviet sources, around 125 to 150 people were shot.⁴

The report of Einsatzgruppe B dated October 9, 1941, describes this event as follows: “In Khislavichi, according to reports from the Russian population, the Jews living in the ghetto have during the last few days tried to incite a mood of panic by spreading false rumors about an alleged offensive by the Bolsheviks. They also threatened to exact revenge once the Bolsheviks returned. Consequently, the Vorkommando sent out a detachment [Kommando], which liquidated 114 Jews.”⁵

The German occupying authorities tried to cover up the shooting of the Jewish men by claiming that they had been sent to work in Belorusssia. Jewish craftsmen were not shot at this time, as the Germans spared leather tanners, boot makers, and tailors from the ghetto. For making a suit, a tailor [End Page 1797] would receive half a packet of Russian tobacco. An irreplaceable Jewish mechanic named Dvorkin was ordered by the Germans to work at a mill. They gave his family an apartment and supplied them with basic foodstuffs. In the course of the final German evacuation of the town, however, the family was murdered.

The remaining ghetto inmates had to perform grueling physical labor. In January and February 1942, nearly all able-bodied Jews had to participate in laying concrete for various permanent defensive fortification sites for the German army.

German soldiers and Russian policemen often entered the ghetto to rob the Jews. They stole valuable items, clothing, and other property. In early January 1941, some German pilots who had just arrived in Khislavichi threatened the Jews and took all their warm clothing at gunpoint, including their winter coats with the yellow badges.

The ghetto inmates were constantly subjected to assault and other forms of humiliation. The Germans and Russian policemen raped Jewish girls and young women. For example, two 15-year-old twin sisters named Dimentman were raped in front of their parents. In January 1942, a group of young Jewish boys and girls were taken away from the ghetto and never seen again.⁶

In the view of the Einsatzgruppe, in the second half of September 1941 the Jews of Khislavichi could be characterized by their “passive resistance.”⁷ Young Jews looked for any opportunity to escape the ghetto. Sometimes they escaped when they were assigned to labor tasks outside the ghetto. In the words of one former ghetto inmate, “[T]hose who had all their closest relatives in the ghetto tried not only to escape, but also to organize armed resistance.” When the ghetto was first set up, one young Jewish man tried to mobilize his compatriots by crying out, “Don’t be afraid! Resist their power!” He was killed for speaking out. Another young girl who escaped from the ghetto came back a few times by sneaking past the guards. Among the ghetto inmates she spread Soviet leaflets dropped by planes.

Part of the population came to disbelieve the claims of German propaganda that “all misfortunes come from the Jews; and that this parasitic group is living off the people.” One witness observed that when the Germans talked with the local population, they “were not able to refute the fact that the Jews were the same kind of hardworking people as the rest of the population, for this was indisputable.”⁸

Evgenii Rzhetskii, a former teacher of German and director of the school branch of the raion administration in Khislavichi, became a translator for the Germans. He was able to save a number of Jews. One of the ghetto inmates, a schoolteacher, produced a certificate attesting to her falsified Russian nationality. Rzhetskii was apparently able to help some of the Jews by finding them work. Local residents of Khislavichi helped save the life of the tailor Iakov Bass, whose family perished in the ghetto.

At dawn on March 20, 1942, the Russian police broke into the Khislavichi ghetto. According to witness testimonies, a detachment of local Russian police, under the command of the German Security Police and SD, carried out the Aktion.⁹ Some of the policemen surrounded the ghetto while the others drove the Jews from their homes, not even allowing them to put on their clothes. Those who were too old or sick to move were shot in the ghetto. Local policemen on foot and on horseback escorted the Jews to the killing site. Some younger Jews and children tried to escape, but they were killed. On the way there, and during the shooting itself, the policemen seized the Jews’ remaining clothing and shoes.

The killing was carried out in a gully only about 150 meters (492 feet) northwest of the town. The Jews were shot with rifles and automatic pistols. Young children were forced to kneel with their heads to the ground. The policemen threw some of the children into the ditch alive. A 12-year-old girl who escaped was apprehended by the Rayon head, Shevandin. A 12-year-old boy with frozen hands and feet made it as far as the edge of town, but he too was caught and shot by the police. For about two weeks the grave site remained only partially covered, and dogs dragged away some of the bodies.

In the documents of the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK), two different figures are given for the number of victims of the mass shooting on March 20, 1942. Some documents report 800 victims, and others only 600.¹⁰ About 200 Jews had perished before the shootings, so the latter figure is probably more accurate. The commander of the partisan detachment operating in the Khislavichi raion reported to the western headquarters of the partisan movement that 550 Jews had been killed in Khislavichi in one day.¹¹

The police searched for those Jews who had escaped and caught many in the nearby villages. With each Jew who was found and shot, the police seized any valuables and other possessions, including tobacco. Sometimes the Jews were handed over by local inhabitants. Of all the inmates of the ghetto, only a few managed to save themselves. A 6-year-old boy sneaked away at night after emerging from the mass grave, and he succeeded in escaping from Khislavichi. A Russian father was able to hide a 12-year-old girl, although her Jewish mother and infant brother were both shot.

Jewish property—featherbeds, pillows, clothing, and ornaments—was divided as spoils among the Germans and Russian police. Some of it was resold in a local store in Khislavichi.

The ChGK investigation concluded that the mass killing of the “Soviet citizens” of Khislavichi was organized and carried out by the German commandant Dolerman, his deputy Mais, and their collaborators, including the Rayon head Shevandin and the chief of police, Bobkov.¹²