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

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

Monastyrshchina is located 50 kilometers (31 miles) south-southwest of Smolensk, on the Vikhra River. There were 856 Jews living there in 1939.

On July 18, 1941, units of German Army Group Center entered Monastyrshchina. In July and August, the occupying authorities hanged a number of Soviet activists and Jews in the town square. Among those executed were the head of the Jewish kolkhoz and a Jewish doctor, who was accused of trying to poison the Germans.

German soldiers and members of the local Russian auxiliary police (Ordnungsdienst) also robbed the Jewish population. They took any valuable items, cattle, and other property.

Sometime in September 1941, a detachment of the “Vorkommando Moskau” section of Einsatzgruppe B arrived in Monastyrshchina and ordered the marking and registration of the Jewish population. This visit was reportedly in response to the “daring and defiant” behavior of the Jews. The Jews had to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing. All Jews were resettled into a ghetto and were allowed to bring in only their most essential items.¹

The Germans established the ghetto on one of the streets on the outskirts of town. Approximately 30 houses near the Zhelezniak River were designated for this purpose. Around 800 Jews were moved into the ghetto. In addition, the OD was ordered by the occupying authorities to round up all Jews in the villages of the Rayon Monastyrschtschina and move them into the ghetto. The ghetto was surrounded by a fence, and the inmates were guarded by Russian policemen.²

The majority of the prisoners in the ghetto had large families with many children. The average age of the men was 45 years old. Those brought into the ghetto included traders, kolkhoz workers, and many who were in service professions. The women were mostly homemakers.³

All able-bodied persons were sent out of the ghetto to perform various kinds of forced labor. The prisoners of the ghetto did not receive sufficient rations and suffered from hunger. During the harsh winter of 1941–1942, furniture was burned for heating purposes, along with anything else the inmates could find. People in the ghetto suffered from infectious diseases, including typhus. Ivan Blinov, the head of the OD in Rayon Monastyrschtschina, became known for “treating the Jews with cruelty and callous disregard for their lives.”⁴

Before the ghetto was liquidated, a site for mass shootings had already been selected to deal with those Jews caught outside the ghetto or trying to escape its confines. In December 1941, V. Grachev, the head of the second department of the OD, shot a Jewish woman and her two children, who were 3 and 6 years old. At the start of January 1942, six women and a 12-year-old girl were shot. In the same month, another six Jews were shot at the Jewish cemetery. The killings were carried out by three Germans and a number of Russian policemen.

In February 1942, 10 SS officers from Einsatzkommando 8 (members of the Security Police and SD) arrived in Monastyrshchina.⁵ Also taking part in the mass shootings were Russian policemen (OD) under the command of the mayor of Monastyrshchina, Trofim Savel’ev, and a detachment of “Ukrainian Cossacks,” composed of Ukrainians and former Soviet prisoners of war.

The prisoners were driven out of the ghetto with blows from rifle butts and lashes and were placed in four houses guarded by the Ukrainians. Next, 100 of them were transported to a cheese-processing factory and herded into the basement. From there, the Jews were taken out in smaller groups to the large ravine called “Chertov Iar,” located on the outskirts of Monastyrshchina.⁶

Near the ravine, all were ordered to strip naked, despite the brutal cold. Anyone who refused was beaten cruelly. The Jews were then ordered to lie down at the bottom of the ditch, where they were shot with automatic rifles. The Aktion continued in this manner, as subsequent groups of Jews had to lie down on top of the corpses before they were shot in turn. Bodies of new rows of victims piled up on top of some who were only wounded.⁷ The perpetrators also buried young children who were still alive. When a policeman named Dudin was apprehended subsequently by the Soviet authorities and asked if he threw young children into the ditch alive, he responded, “I did not throw them, I was putting them down.”⁸

As the ghetto prisoners were taken to the killing site, a three-year-old boy attempted to escape and hid among the residents of Monastyrshchina who were some distance away. However, Russian policemen captured the boy and killed him by smashing his head on the ground. Moreover, the OD found and shot a number of Jews who were hiding in Monastyrshchina. A month after the liquidation of the ghetto, on the orders of the German military commandant, Captain Rechke, and the mayor of the town, Trofim Savel’ev, 49 Jews who were incarcerated and had remained alive after the first Aktion were also shot.⁹

In February and March 1942, more than 800 Jews in total were shot in Monastyrshchina.¹⁰ During the same period, Jews from the ghetto in Tatarsk were also shot. According to the findings of the Smolensk provincial committee for the investigation of the crimes committed by the Nazis in the years 1941–1942, 1,700 Jews were executed in the Monastyrshchina raion of the Smolensk oblast’.¹¹

As a rule, the Nazis also murdered the children of mixed (Jewish/non-Jewish) marriages. In Monastyrshchina, two Russian residents had to bring their wives and children to the [End Page 1806] killing site and watch as they were shot. The Germans spared one 11-year-old child whose Russian father was at the front and whose Jewish mother and brother were murdered.¹²

Isaak Rozenberg, a resident of Monastyrshchina was hidden by his Russian wife for more than two years, concealed in an underground bunker behind the stove. She only went down to visit him at night. His two young children did not even know that their mother was hiding their father underground. In September 1943, in the course of a battle between the Red Army and retreating German soldiers in Monastyrshchina, Rozenberg’s home was burned down, and he died of smoke inhalation.¹³

Prime responsibility for organizing the murder of the Jews of the ghetto lies with Paul Rechke, who was in command of Ortskommandantur (OK) (I)/292¹⁴ in Monastyrshchina at that time, and members of the detachment of Einsatzkommando 8. After the liberation of the town, Soviet authorities arrested several members of the collaborating local police (OD).¹⁵ In October 1942, the former head of the Monastyrshchina police, V. Borozdin, and the former head of the second detachment of the Monastyrshchina police, V. Grachev, were sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment.