Hantsavichy Ghetto

Before the war, Jews constituted 70% of Gantsevichi's population, approximately 1,700 people.^[2]

Hantsavichy was captured by German troops on June 30, 1941, and the occupation lasted for three years, until July 7, 1944.^[3]

At the beginning of the war, the Germans destroyed almost the entire Jewish population of the town and the surrounding villages. Jews from nearby districts—Kletsk, Telekhany, Krasnoslobodsk, and others—more than 6,000 people, were brought to Gantsevichi to be killed.^[4]

From June 30 to July 1, 1941, during an "action" (used by the Nazis for organized mass killings) in Gantsevichi, 16 Jews were killed, and on August 15, 350 Jews were killed.^[2]

In the fall of 1941, the Germans, implementing Hitler's program of Jewish extermination, organized a ghetto in the town, which functionally served as a labor camp. It housed 230 Jews from Lenin and 120 from Pogost-Zagorodsky.^[2]

The ghetto, located opposite the railway station and enclosed by a barbed-wire fence, consistently housed around 500 people. Those who died from hunger, beatings, disease, or were shot by guards, were replaced by new able-bodied prisoners from nearby ghettos.^[5]

The Nazis forced Greenberg (also known as Greenbaum) to become the chairman of the Judenrat. He did everything possible to save the prisoners.^[6][7]

Most of the prisoners were used in the construction of roads through the swamps, while a smaller number worked in various workshops in the town.^[5]

Jews were dying of hunger. Each person was given only 200 grams of ersatz bread made from chaff mixed with straw and 20 grams of cereal per day.^[5]

A sign with "behavior rules" hung on the camp gates, with the punishment for any violation being execution—even for hiding a piece of bread. For every escapee or attempted escape, 40 prisoners and all the escapee's relatives were shot.^[5]

The Germans shot those who became weakened or ill on the spot.^[5]

In addition to morning and evening roll calls, the exhausted prisoners were counted several more times a day. At the sound of the guard's whistle, the Jews would stand "in eights," and the guards would check if everyone was present.^[5]

A cavalry unit of the SS, which killed Jews in Telekhany, arrived in Gantsevichi in early August 1941.^[8]

On August 14 (or 11), 1942, more than 300 Jews escaped, and those who remained were shot. The head of the Judenrat, Greenberg, was the initiator of the mass escape preparation and organization.^[8][6][9]

There were 31 execution pits in and around the town. They were dug at the sites of today's Sadovaya, Montazhnikov, Dzerzhinsky, and Frunze streets; Korotkiy, Sadovy, and Proletarsky lanes; at the 7th kilometer of the Gantsevichi-Khatynichi road; and in the Krasunya forest area (Malkovich district). Each of these pits contained the remains of 300-500 murdered Jews and partially prisoners of war.

In the mid-1960s, the remains of Jews—the victims of the genocide—from all known execution pits were reburied in a grave on Gagarin Street, and a monument was erected at that site. In the 1970s, due to street construction, the remains and the monument were moved to the northeastern part of the town cemetery.

A monument to the victims of the Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, who died during the uprising in Gantsevichi and whose burial places are unknown, was erected in the Jewish cemetery in the village of Lenin.

Incomplete lists of Jews killed in Gantsevichi are available.