The Pinsk ghetto remained the last one; it existed in the agony of alienation and hopelessness, hunted by antisemitism. From the first days of occupation, the invaders suppressed the will to live in the people under their control through systematic extermination, starvation, and slave labor. The special residential area was isolated so that a row of houses facing the streets was left to their inhabitants. Outwardly, everything in the city looked calm, but behind such “facades” began the zone of suffering. Every hour of the 182 days and nights seemed like an eternity of torment. The prisoners knew that there were no Jews left in Pogost-Zagorodsky, Luninets, Stolin, Gorodnaya, Logishin, Ivanovo… A rumor spread that pits had already been dug at the Dobray Volya airfield. “These are for aviation fuel tanks,” the fascists reassured. “Work, work, the great Germany needs good workers.” And yet the unfortunate hoped to survive.

“Main SS Directorate. Bergal Raspe to the SD commander in Pinsk Rasku and the Gebietskommissar (personally)

The Main SS Directorate entrusts you with organizing the liquidation of the Jewish population of the district during the period from August to September 1942.

The Gebietskommissariat must take care of preparing the operation as soon as possible. The operation must be carried out according to the following plan:

Graves for burying the bodies should be prepared in advance.

The ghetto must be hermetically sealed.

The Jews must be concentrated in one place for more organized escort to the site of the operation.

Marching formation accompanied by guards — columns of one hundred people (100).

The Jews line up near the pits with their backs to the armed machine gunners.

The next groups must lie on the bodies and be shot at close range.

Before and after the operation, the security forces and SD receive vodka.”

And in the ghetto, they decided: at the last moment, to set fire to whatever they could and run away. But the well-trained liquidation teams acted quickly and mercilessly. Columns moved toward the area with the beautiful name Dobray Volya. Closer to the airfield, the moving mass seemed to begin to lighten — the executioners ordered the prisoners to undress. In the cold, this humiliation was the last means used by the executioners to deprive their victims of the desire to resist. Muffled shots were heard. Gaps appeared, and then the column disappeared as if it sank into the ground, replaced by a new one, eyewitnesses recall. There were few of them, as well as those who survived the hell created on earth. It is believed that under various circumstances, 42 ghetto prisoners survived. There were also those who, risking death, gave the unfortunate a chance to survive. Perhaps a unique case: among those honored with the title “Righteous Among the Nations” for saving Jews in Pinsk and the Pinsk district were a German officer and an Orthodox priest.

In total, from October 29 to November 2, 1942, the prisoners of the Pinsk ghetto (about 23,800 people) were exterminated in the Dobray Volya ravine. In 1944, nine graves measuring 9 by 45 meters were discovered. Before retreating from Pinsk, the fascists opened the graves and began burning the remains of the prisoners on pyres, and the ashes were plowed into the ground.

 In 1992, a memorial complex was opened on the territory of the Pinsk airport. On the main monument of the memorial, made of light granite, the faces and figures of mourning women and the ritual seven-branched menorah are encoded. On the adjacent round square, there are low steles with inscriptions in three languages: Belarusian, Hebrew, and Yiddish.

The author of the monument is sculptor Borzennikov.

Sources:

https://savehistory.by/karta/pamyatnik-zhertvam-getto-pinsk/