Trostenets is the largest site of mass extermination of people on the territory of Belarus during the years of the Nazi occupation, one of the largest concentration camps in Europe, standing alongside Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka.

The name Trostenets encompasses several sites of mass murder: the Blagovshchina tract — a place of mass shootings; the camp — near the village of Maly Trostenets, 10 km from Minsk along the Mogilev highway; the Shashkovka tract — a place of mass burning of people. According to official data, a total of 206,500 people died in the Trostenets death camp.

By the end of August 1941, Belarus was occupied by the Nazi invaders. The fascists sought to turn the entire territory of Belarus into a place of mass extermination of the population. Trostenets was established in the autumn of 1941 in the Blagovshchina tract, approximately at the 11th–13th kilometer of the Mogilev highway near Minsk. Documents and materials testify that on December 8 and 9, 1941 alone, dozens of prisoners from the Minsk prison were shot here. They were brought in on eight heavily loaded trucks. Later, the camp began to receive prisoners of war, partisans, underground fighters, and Jews. The occupiers brought people here not only from Belarus but also from other Central and Western European countries. At that time, the camp was still being organized.

After some time, the fascists applied a new method of extermination: the doomed were loaded with unbearable labor and, already completely exhausted, were shot. Thus, the so-called labor camp arose.

As in other Nazi concentration camps, Trostenets had its own "road of death." Prisoners walked along this alley to their burning or shooting. As the camp grew, its security system was improved. Especially since in December 1941, partisans attacked Trostenets, killing several guards.

At the beginning of 1942, the labor camp occupied 200 hectares of land belonging to the pre-war Karl Marx collective farm. Prisoners of war built a house for the commandant, guard quarters, and a garage here. A narrow road was laid from the Mogilev highway to the camp, with young poplars planted on both sides. The camp was enclosed with barbed wire under electric current, had watchtowers for round-the-clock armed guards with machine guns and automatic rifles, and warning signs in German and Russian: "Entry to the camp is forbidden, shooting without warning!" By May 1942, a large farm for food production was established on the camp territory. Prisoners grew agricultural crops, raised cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks. There were also a mill, sawmill, locksmith, carpentry, shoemaking, tailoring, and other workshops serving the occupiers' needs.

As recalled by the few surviving prisoners, living and working conditions in the camp were harsh. Prisoners of war and civilian detainees were initially housed in a barn on wet straw or in cellars. Later, barracks made of raw boards were built. Arbitrary actions by guards and shootings of prisoners became the camp’s daily routine.

From the report of SS Untersturmführer Arlt on the activities of the 2nd platoon of the 1st company of the SS special purpose battalion dated May 17, 1942, which supervised the digging of pits 22 kilometers from Minsk:

"On May 5, we again began digging new pits near the commander's estate and carried out this work ourselves. It took 4 days.

On May 11, a transport with 1,000 Jews arrived in Minsk from Vienna and was immediately taken from the station to the aforementioned pit. The platoon was directly involved at the pit."

From spring 1942, twice a week, foreign nationals from Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, and Germany were brought to Trostenets for extermination. Sometimes trains arrived at Minsk station, but more often prisoners were delivered early in the morning via a special railway branch very close to Trostenets. Arrivals were unloaded on a platform, their belongings taken away, and to calm them, receipts were issued, convincing the condemned that they were merely being relocated. A careful selection of specialists — electricians, locksmiths, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers — was conducted, i.e., those who could be of use. They were sent to the camp; the rest were exterminated.

From Riga, a unit of Arajs came to guard the camp and participate in the extermination of prisoners; this unit had already "distinguished" itself by massacring Riga’s Jews. The camp leadership, as expected, was brutally cruel. Deputy commandant Tosh personally beat prisoners with sticks and liked to appear in public accompanied by a huge dog. Sick prisoners and those caught trying to escape were killed without delay. The dead were not buried. Selective shootings during general roll calls were practiced. Gas vans were also used for killings, where victims were poisoned with exhaust gases. From the interrogation protocols of German POW Gerike, who worked as a driver of a gas van in Minsk since summer 1942: "Each gas van held about 60-70 people, and thus SD officers began loading Jews into the van. After the van was full, the door was closed, and no air entered. Then I opened a certain valve, and gas began to flow inside the van, killing those inside."

From the interrogation protocols of German POW Gerike: "Upon arrival at the site, i.e., in the forest, pits were already dug. I opened the door of my gas van, and dead bodies fell out. They fell because so many were loaded into the van that they could only stand. Those who did not fall out were pulled out by Russian prisoners of war, who then threw them into the pits, covered them with earth, and poured chlorine solution to prevent the spread of disease."

From the report of SS Untersturmführer Arlt, who supervised the preparation of pits in the Blagovshchina tract, on the activities of the 2nd platoon of the 1st company of the SS special purpose battalion dated August 3, 1942:

• July 21, 22, and 23 — new pits were dug.

• July 24 — another transport with 1,000 Jews from the Reich arrived.

• July 25 to 27 — new pits were dug.

• July 28 — a large operation in the Minsk Russian ghetto. 6,000 Jews were brought to the pit.

• July 29 — 3,000 German Jews were brought to the pit. In the following days, we cleaned and tested weapons."

This happened periodically over six months. From May to October 1942, 16 trains with deported Jews arrived in Minsk. In total, during this period, up to 10,000 Western Jews were killed in Trostenets, including about 3,500 brought to Minsk as early as 1941. Belarusians were also killed in Trostenets. And many were killed. They ended up in the camp from Minsk prisons for connections with the resistance — partisans and underground fighters — as well as hostages. At least three large shootings of peaceful Belarusian civilians are known. The most famous actions were after the explosion at the SD and Cube canteen in September 1943.

From the testimony of witness Matusevich on January 22, 1946: "… we were lined up three people per row and had our documents checked. Documents were checked until the vehicles arrived. But when they came, document checks stopped, and old people and children were put into the vehicles. A terrible scream and crying arose. Children begged for mercy, but they were thrown into the vehicles. Among those taken were my daughter, son-in-law, and their 4-year-old son. They were all put into a vehicle and taken somewhere unknown. I only survived because I jumped off the moving vehicle… Then the Germans posted a notice on the fence that they would shoot 300 people for the explosion in the SD canteen. However, more than a thousand were arrested on our streets…".

A special torture chamber was equipped for interrogations. Prisoners were divided into groups of ten. If someone from the group escaped, all the remaining were shot. But even such collective responsibility did not stop escapes. Once, a whole group of ten escaped.

One of the escaped Czechoslovakian Jews, Karel Klein, decided to join the partisans when he learned his name was on the death list. Working on burials, the man hid in a field, then reached a nearby village and joined a partisan detachment there. Karel fought side by side with Belarusians until the very end of the war.

From the memoirs of former Trostenets concentration camp prisoner, Czech Jew Hanuš Munz: "We were brought to a table standing 40 meters from the wagon. SS men asked everyone about their profession. I said I was a locksmith, although I was not. Then everything we had was taken away: gold, jewelry, watches, pens, even wedding rings. Then people were ordered to get into covered vans." Munz was left on the platform, along with about 20 others. The rest — about 980 people — were taken somewhere in covered vehicles. According to his recollections, it was very cramped in these vehicles. People were forced to squat and hold others on their knees.

Prisoners’ food was meager. They were fed soup made from scraps once a day. About 150 grams of bread and tea were also issued. People subjected to forced labor, in despair, caught and ate dogs. Workers at the Minsk bakery helped those in the camp. They sent spoiled flour to Trostenets, which prisoners sifted. Pieces of real bread were hidden in the flour.

In the autumn of 1943, after defeats at Stalingrad and Kursk, the fascists sensed the approaching end and decided to hide the traces of their crimes. An excavator with a specially designed bucket for extracting bodies from mass graves was delivered to Blagovshchina. Remains were burned on giant pyres, for which peasants from an entire volost were forced to cut wood and deliver logs day after day for two months. Human ashes were carefully mixed with soil. This work was carried out from October to December 1943.

In the autumn of the same year, half a kilometer from the camp in the Shashkovka tract, the Nazis fenced off a forest area with a 3-meter-high fence and wrapped it with barbed wire. Notices warning "Strictly forbidden to enter. Violation will be punished by shooting" were hung at the approaches. Construction began on a cremation pit-oven. It was a pit 8 square meters in area and 4 meters deep. Rails lay above this peculiar furnace, and a special road with a descent for vehicles and steps for the doomed led to it.

In the Blagovshchina tract, 34 huge pits were discovered, carefully camouflaged with brushwood, coniferous and fir branches, and pieces of turf. Some pits were up to 50 meters long. These grand graves were filled with ashes and bones of the burned. The investigation established that 150,000 people were exterminated in Blagovshchina by the fascists.

From the report of the chief of staff of the "Storm" partisan brigade Vogel on the intensification of Hitler’s terror in Minsk dated January 31, 1944: "… now terror in the city has intensified. Hundreds of people are imprisoned daily under the pretext of connections with partisans. The Minsk prison is cleared twice a week. Hundreds of people are sent to the Trostenets village area and shot there…"

The Trostenets death camp continued to operate until the end of June 1944. Gas vans constantly brought prisoners from the Minsk prison and the concentration camp on Shirokaya Street to Trostenets. From June 15 to July 1, 1944, on the eve of the expulsion of the Nazis from Belarus, the gas vans claimed a huge number of lives, running the route Shirokaya Street — Maly Trostenets.

In June 1944, just days before the Red Army entered Minsk, the commander of the security police Heinrich Seetzen ordered the extermination of prisoners held in the camp and the SS prison in Minsk. Six thousand five hundred people were brought to Maly Trostenets, locked up, and shot in a barn, which was then burned down.

Trostenets prisoners were liberated in the summer of 1944. The investigation of crimes committed in the concentration camp was undertaken by the Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of Atrocities of the Nazi Invaders. The Minsk regional commission included Hero of the Soviet Union Major General Vasily Kozlov (who had previously organized the partisan movement in Belarus), the chief surgeon of the Red Army Academician Nikolai Burdenko, a professor of forensic medicine and doctor of medical sciences. As a result of the investigation, 34 burial pits were discovered (some up to 50 meters long).

According to modern historians’ estimates, 60,000 people were killed in Blagovshchina and 50,000 in Shashkovka. Walter Rauff, who supervised the creation of mobile gas chambers used in Trostenets, fled to Latin America after the war. In 1973, after the coup in Chile, he became the chief advisor to the department investigating communist activities at the invitation of the military junta. The camp commandant, SS Untersturmführer Heinrich Eiche, fled to Argentina. In 1970, the Koblenz prosecutor’s office closed the case against another camp commandant, former SS Obersturmführer Gerhard Maywald, citing lack of evidence.

The first monuments, unveiled in the 1960s in memory of Trostenets victims, stated that "Soviet citizens" died here. The last memorial, opened in 2015, the "Gate of Memory," claimed this was a place of mass extermination of Minsk residents, underground fighters, partisans, prisoners of war, and "civilian population deported from European countries."

Descendants of this civilian population from Europe travel to Belarus. They go not so much to the old monuments but to the forest located on the other side of the Mogilev highway near the garbage dump. They leave yellow plaques with the names of relatives on the trees.

Sources:

https://diletant.media/articles/41874815/

https://vid1.ria.ru/ig/infografika/Sputnik/bel/TrostenecRUS/Trostenec.html

https://www.belta.by/society/view/dose-lager-smerti-trostenets-308621-2018/

Photo © Sputnik / Viktor Tolochko