ROSLAVL’
Pre-1941: Roslavl’, town and raion center, Smolensk oblast’, RSFSR; 1941–1943: Roslawl, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Roslavl’, Russian Federation
Roslavl’ is located 107 kilometers (66 miles) southeast of Smolensk. According to the 1939 population census, 2,935 Jews lived in Roslavl’.
Following heavy aerial bombardments of the town in June and July 1941, German mobile forces of Army Group Center occupied the town on August 3. Due to its location on a main east-west railroad, a large portion of the Jewish population was able to evacuate to the east before the Germans’ arrival. It is estimated that between 300 and 600 Jews remained in Roslavl’ at the start of the German occupation. The German military administration established a local Russian auxiliary police force (Ordnungsdienst), which not only maintained order but also carried out repressive measures against the local population.
Shortly after the start of the occupation, the Germans hanged 4 people in the center of Roslavl’ who had been denounced as Communists.1 According to Soviet sources, on August 5–6, 1941, German security forces murdered a group of Jews, possibly as suspected Communist activists.2 German sources indicate that probably in the first half of September 1941, the 2nd Platoon of the 2nd Company, Reserve Police Battalion 9, which was attached to Einsatzgruppe B, came to Roslavl’, where it arrested and then shot about 50 men (mostly Jews). The same unit subsequently conducted a second Aktion in Roslavl’ in which about 25 Jews (including some women) were arrested by members of the SD and shot by members of the battalion on a command from their platoon leader.
In October (or possibly the first part of November) 1941, the German military administration established a ghetto or “Jewish residential area” (Judenviertel) on Red Fleet Streets # 1 and # 2. All the Jews were moved into several empty houses and were prohibited from having any contact with the other residents of the town. The area was enclosed and guarded day and night to ensure that nobody escaped.3
In the fall of 1941, Roslavl’ came under the control of Feldkommandantur (V) 199, which was subordinated to Security Division 286. Other units based in the town included a unit of Feldgendarmerie commanded by Leutnant Vogt, an OT unit, a bakery company, and a Luftwaffe repair unit. A detachment of Einsatzkommando 8 commanded by Kriminalkommissar Wilhelm Döring arrived in Roslavl’ in mid-November 1941. It remained there until the end of December [End Page 1815] 1941, when it was replaced by a detachment of Sonderkommando 7c. German investigative records indicate that shortly after his arrival Döring received an unwritten order from Einsatzkommando 8 to shoot the Jews who had already been concentrated (ghettoized) in Roslavl’.4
According to Soviet sources, the German Security Police liquidated the ghetto in mid- or late November 1941.5 Einsatzgruppen report no. 148, dated December 19, 1941, stated that a total of 510 Jews of both sexes were shot in Shumiachi and Roslavl’, on grounds of “public security and order.” Testimonies by members of the Feldgendarmerie unit subordinated to Feldkommandantur (V) 199, based in Roslavl’, give the figure of at least 200 Jews being shot there in the winter of 1941–1942.6
These testimonies and information from the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) permit a fairly detailed reconstruction of the ghetto liquidation Aktion in Roslavl’. A few days prior to the Aktion, a group of able-bodied Jews was selected from the ghetto and ordered to prepare a large pit under the supervision of the Russian Ordnungsdienst on the grounds of the Jewish cemetery. On the assigned day, men of the Feldgendarmerie were ordered to get up early in order to conduct a roundup in the Jewish quarter. These men claim that they thought initially the Jews were being assembled for transfer to a forced labor assignment. They searched the Judenviertel and collected together at one point about 200 Jews, including a number of women and children, who were then handed over to the men of the SD. The Jews were then escorted to a ditch about 6 meters by 5 meters and 2 meters deep (19.7 by 16.4 by 6.6 feet), which had been prepared at the cemetery, apparently located close to the POW camp on the southwestern edge of town. Here the Jews had to remove their outer clothing and were searched by the SD for any valuables. About seven or eight SD men then shot the Jews with machine pistols in groups of 2 to 5 people at the ditch. Children were thrown into the ditch and buried alive. The Feldgendarmes served as an external cordon to guard the site against escape attempts and prevent onlookers from approaching. The Jews remained calm throughout the Aktion, more or less resigned to their fate. Among the victims was Dr. Magidson of the children’s hospital. Afterwards, Döring reported the date and the number of people shot back to the headquarters of Einsatzkommando 8.7
Local resident Nikolai Karpov recalled that after a few days it became known that the houses of the ghetto were empty again, and people who lived nearby reported with horror that all the inhabitants, including women, children, and the elderly, had been shot near the old Jewish cemetery and that the graves had been hastily covered with earth. Russian policemen then plundered the houses of the ghetto. He observed how one policeman attempted to remove the cow that had formerly belonged to the large family of a Jewish tailor, but the cow did not want to go with someone it did not know.8
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 of all ages and both sexes had been denounced by local inhabitants and handed over to the Wehrmacht. They were subsequently shot together with other prisoners by the SD in the course of mass shootings conducted at irregular intervals to “make room” in the prison cells.9
The Red Army drove the Germans from Roslavl’ on September 23, 1943. Only a handful of Jews from Roslavl’ managed to survive on German-occupied territory, either hiding among the local population or serving with the Soviet partisans.10
SOURCES
The memoir of forced laborer Nikolai Karpov, Der kleine Ostarbeiter: Erzählung (Münster: Ardey-Verlag, 2003), has a few pages on the start of the German occupation of Roslavl’, including mention of the ghetto.
Documents on the persecution and extermination of the Jews of Roslavl’ can be found in the following archives: BA-BL (R 58/219); BA-L (ZStL/27282); GARF (7021-44-630 and 631); GASmO (1630-1-337); NARB (861-1-25); USHMM (RG-22.002M, reel 10; and RG-53.002M); and YVA.
NOTES
1. Karpov, Der kleine Ostarbeiter, p. 6.
2. GARF, 7021-44-630, pp. 125–127; and Il’ja Al’tmann, Opfer des Hasses: Der Holocaust in der UdSSR 1941–1945 (Zurich: Gleichen, 2008), pp. 310, 313.
3. NARB, 861-1-25, p. 77 V. Doubson, “Getto na okkupirovannoi territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1941–42 gg.,” Vestnik Evreiskogo Universiteta v Moskve, no. 3 (21) (2000): 159; Karpov, Der kleine Ostarbeiter, p. 7.
4. Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 19 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1979), Lfd. Nr. 564, p. 712.
5. Doubson, “Getto na okkupirovannoi territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1941–1942 gg.,” p. 159; NARB, 861-1-25, p. 82. GARF, 7021-44-630, p. 129, indicates that the Jews were shot on November 14, 1941, only three days after the establishment of the ghetto.
6. BA-BL, R 58/219, Ereignismeldung UdSSR no. 148, December 19, 1941, p. 10; BA-L, B 162/27282, pp. 47–49, 60–66, 76–80.
7. BA-L, B 162/27282, pp. 47–49, 60–66, 76–80; Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 19, Lfd. Nr. 564, p. 712; NARB, 861-1-25, p. 80.
8. Karpov, Der kleine Ostarbeiter, p. 7. (It may also have been a Jewish family named Schneider [tailor]).
9. BA-L, B 162/27282, pp. 47–49, 60–66, 76–80.
10. The Survivors’ Registry of the USHMM has registered 40 survivors from Roslavl’, but the overwhelming majority of them were evacuated from the town in time and spent the war on the Soviet side of the front.
