Ghetto in the village of Gory

Ghetto in Gory (Goretsky District) (summer 1941 — October 17, 1941) — a Jewish ghetto, a place of forced resettlement of Jews from the village of Gory, Goretsky District, Mogilev Region, and nearby settlements during the persecution and extermination of Jews during the occupation of Belarusian territory by Nazi Germany’s troops in World War II.

The village of Gory was captured by German troops in mid-July 1941; the occupation lasted until September 29, 1943. A German commissioner and a police detachment formed by the occupation authorities from Belarusian collaborators were stationed in the village. The German occupation authorities, implementing the Nazi program of exterminating Jews, organized a ghetto in the village. It occupied the lower part of the village and its center. Jews were ordered to sew a yellow star onto their outer clothing and were forbidden to leave the ghetto, although it was not fenced. The ghetto prisoners were used for forced labor, including agricultural work.

After the extermination of the Jewish population in Gorki, the fascists shot the Jews in the village of Gory. A witness to these events, Ulyana Khodosevich, recalled: “Many Jews lived in our village; they occupied the entire center of Gory. They were engaged in crafts, worked in the local collective farm, school, hospital, flax factory. In early October 1941, Belarusian men were gathered and forced to dig a large pit on the territory of the flax factory. Then the fascists and policemen brought more than 300 Jews, forced them to undress and lie naked in the pit, and then shot them. Some were buried alive. Later, I saw policemen carrying a whole cart of clothes...”

There is a testimony of resistance. When the blacksmith Abram Altshuller was brought to execution with his children, he struck one of the policemen on the head with a hammer. For this, his entire family was buried alive.

One of the pages of the “Black Book” by Ehrenburg and Grossman is dedicated to the events that took place in the village of Gory. From Ilya Ehrenburg’s note: “Many Jews lived in the town of Gory: workers of the sawmill (Ehrenburg was mistaken, there was a flax factory in Gory), craftsmen, collective farmers of the ‘Chyrvony Stsyag’ collective farm, blacksmiths, seamstresses, and shoemakers of the town were famous far and wide. Who did not know the blacksmith Abram Altshuller? There was a ten-year school, a library, a large club, a hospital, a park of culture and rest in Gory... The Germans came. An officer saw a six-year-old boy on the road and shot him. That was the beginning. On the morning of October 19, 1941, the Germans surrounded the town. A German burst into the house of eighty-year-old Efros. The old man was praying. The German grabbed his hand: ‘Go!’ Efros replied: ‘Don’t touch me! I have enough strength to reach the grave!’ From a neighboring house, the Germans pulled out the disabled Gurevich; his wife Mira was crying. Gurevich said: ‘Mira, don’t cry.’ The Jews were led to the factory. There was a huge pit dug there. Old Rakhley shouted: ‘You will not forget the blood of these infants! You will answer for everything...’ She was killed first. The Jews were undressed. ‘It’s cold,’ cried the little children. Hana Gurevich shouted: ‘I won’t let scoundrels mock my children,’ the last to be killed was old Efros. On March 21, 1944, the Red Army liberated Gory. They dug up the grave near the factory and saw a terrible sight: a woman with a child in her arms, an infant who clung with his arms around the old woman’s neck, probably his grandmother, hundreds of corpses... A rally was held over the excavated grave by a military unit. Officer Konishchev said, ‘Remember, comrades, this grave! Let us swear to avenge the Germans for the blood of innocent Soviet people!’.”

A veteran of the 70th Rifle Division, which was in Gory from November 1943 to June 1944, Ivan Rusinov commanded a separate ski battalion, and the command entrusted him to find and exhume the burial of the shot Jews. “We were checking the frozen ground with crowbars,” he wrote. “And then we found the burial site. In the upper row, the bodies were completely decomposed, but as we went deeper, we began to pull out whole ones. We pulled out a young woman, an old man, and others. The military medical commission stated that some were shot, stunned by rifle butts, and some were buried alive... Then the victims of fascism were reburied.

At the rally, together with the editor of our army newspaper V. Ivanov, the writer I. Ehrenburg arrived. This name was well known to us from articles in the newspaper ‘Krasnaya Zvezda.’ After speaking at the rally, Ehrenburg talked for a long time with the locals, probably questioning them about the shooting...”

As is known, after this, the “Act on the Atrocities of the Germans in the town of Gory, Mogilev Region, BSSR, March 16, 1944” was compiled, which confirmed the fact that more than 200 people were shot. This document was first published in Sverdlov’s book “Documents Accuse. Holocaust: Testimonies of the Red Army.”

What impact this event (participation in the funerals and rally in the town of Gory) had on Ehrenburg’s creativity is unknown to us, as he visited many settlements in 1944 where people were exterminated.

But it was in 1944 that the following lines were written:

People will not come to this ghetto.

People were somewhere. The pits are here.

Days still rush somewhere.

Don’t wait for an answer, we are alone.

Because you have a star on you,

Because your father is different,

Because others have peace.

It is known that Lana Shifrina and her son Herman managed to survive in Gory. They came at the beginning of the war from the village of Blagovichi, Chausky District, Mogilev Region, to the town of Gory to their uncle Mordukh Shmulevich Shifrin. When the Germans came to their house, Lana managed to convince the Germans that she was Russian — a refugee named Ivanova. Since the local policemen did not know her, they let them go, and they urgently moved to another place. Now Herman Mordukhovich Ivanov (actually Shifrin) lives in Germany, and he kept this surname because it saved his life. By the way, he is a cousin of the famous actor Yefim Shifrin.

In 1942, the extermination of the Jewish population in the Goretsky District continued. The “Act of the Goretsky District Commission for Establishing and Investigating the Atrocities of German Criminals during the Great Patriotic War” states: “The German-fascist fiends committed mass murders in the village of Naprasnovka, Maslakovsky village council; there remain eight pits where the shot were buried. The mass shooting was organized by the fascists on March 22, 1942. They shot 250 Jews. Before death, they were cruelly beaten, demanding ransom in gold. Then they were led to the forest edge, 200 meters west of the village of Naprasnovka, and there a mass shooting was carried out over them. Children were thrown alive into the grave, and shot adults were thrown on top.”

Shilova, head of the Maslakovsky branch of the Goretsky Historical and Ethnographic Museum, based on interviews with residents of local villages, reconstructed this tragic day in the village’s history: “On that day, the Germans arrived. One group surrounded the village. The other went from house to house, driving people onto the street. No one was left: neither children nor the elderly. First, everyone was herded into two houses and kept there until lunch. Then they were driven onto the street and formed into a large column. Twelve machine gunners were placed on the sides, and the column was driven along the main road to the forest.

At the front of the column, with chains on his hands, walked a tall man named Ara, so called for his giant stature. Young men, also chained, walked on the sides. Horrible screams and cries came from the column throughout the surroundings. Many lost consciousness and fell, sensing the near end. The stronger and more resilient lifted them and led them on. Approaching the execution site, the Germans ordered people to step out of the column in groups of several and face the pit. If someone had good clothes, they were taken off and then the person was shot — in the back or the head. Many fell into the pit themselves and were finished off there. After shooting everyone, the fascists covered the pit with earth, but it ‘breathed’ for three more days.”

One person managed to escape death, a 20-year-old man named Yesel Stambler. When the column was driven through the forest, he dashed toward the village of Shepelevka. Dodging between trees, he reached the village and went to the house of Nikolai Kozlov. There was grandmother Matryona. He asked to be hidden. The grandmother suggested he stand behind the door under a coat rack with an army coat. Two Germans ran into the village after the young man. They entered every house searching but did not find him. Yesel lived in a barn for several days and then joined the partisans. After the war, he lived in Orsha and worked at Raipo. Every year he came to the village and brought gifts to the grandmother.

An eight-year-old boy also tried to escape but was immediately shot. A young woman with two children managed to hide under the floor of a house. But the next day, the local elder betrayed her to the Germans. Four days later, a German punitive squad arrived in the village of Olkhovka. Several Polish Jewish families lived there. They were taken and taken to Gorki. They never returned.”

At the end of February 1943, the fascists decided to shoot the Jews of the village of Rudkovshchina. Elena Chervinskaya, a local school teacher and native of this village (her father was Jewish, her mother Belarusian), was a witness to these events and collected memories of those who saw this tragedy all her life. She recalled that before the war, several Jewish families lived in Rudkovshchina: Milgotins, Chernomordik (a blacksmith who lived alone), Ioffe, Alkis, Dodkins. In addition to permanent residents, Jews who arrived at the beginning of the war also lived in the village. “March 12, 1943. It was a frosty but windless day,” E. Chervinskaya recalled. “In the morning, all the Jews of the village were gathered in one building. We, two families whose mothers were Belarusian, were left at home under strict supervision until further notice (as the village elder said). The men were loaded onto sleds and taken along a field road; the rest were driven on foot along a straight road to the forest. The youngest granddaughter of Chernomordik was carried by a German by the legs (according to eyewitnesses).” Adam Koposhilov, a witness to the shooting, recalled: “The villagers followed almost the entire village, some out of curiosity, some out of pity. But the scene of the massacre horrified everyone. The first two shots hit the mother and daughter Alkis. She managed to sing the ‘Internationale,’ holding her son. The Germans snatched the three-year-old daughter from her arms, placed the curly blonde girl with big blue eyes on a stump. She looked trustingly at the monster enjoying the scene until she fell dead. A bullet hit her head. People were so frightened that they did not resist. They were made to kneel and shot in the back of the head.”

The Jewish population was also exterminated in the village of Vereshchaki, Goretsky District (it no longer exists). A. Litin and I. Shenderovich, researchers of the Holocaust in the Mogilev region, managed to find witnesses to these events. For example, Tatiana Vasilyevna Borodotskaya told them: “I work as a math teacher at the school in the village of Yurkovo. I was born and lived in the village of Potashi. As a child, we grazed cows near the execution site; there was no marking at the burial site. But in 1986, when I came to work at the school, a metal plaque had already appeared.”

My mother, Nadezhda Petrovna Kudryavtseva, born in 1928, witnessed the shooting of Jews in the village of Vereshchak. In 1942, my mother was already 13 years old. She told that once policemen came for their neighbor Katya Kudryavtseva, who knew German and was a translator. Mom and another girl followed the neighbor to the village of Vereshchaki. They did not know what was to happen there. In Vereshchaki, they saw a large deep pit dug. A machine gun was set up nearby. They said there were only two Germans. Whether policemen were there, mom does not remember. All the villagers were driven to the pit. These were women, elderly, children; there were very few men. The translator was supposed to tell the Jews to enter the pit in groups of ten and lie down. They were shot lying down. There was no resistance. When everyone was shot, someone covered the pit.”

Mom said that people in Potashi treated each other kindly, exchanged goods for goods (for example, eggs for gingerbread), lent money. The shop sold vegetable oil, herring; there was a lot of goods. The village had a wooden pavement.

Mom lived with her family on the outskirts of Potashi, not far from Vereshchaki. She said that for a whole week, some guy came to their house. They gave him food in the evening. It was very scary. They knew the family could be shot for helping Jews. Then the guy disappeared. What happened to him is unknown.

Aunt told that one family was completely shot because a Jewish girl hid in their attic. Who noticed or reported it was never known. People suffer deeply when they talk about this tragedy. The monument says 101 people died, but they say more died because many tried to hide, were betrayed, and killed elsewhere.”

Sergey Ivanovich Lotsmanov, a history teacher at Lenin Secondary School, collected material about the shooting of the Jewish community in the village of Lenino: “After the German occupation, the village of Lenino was renamed back to its old pre-revolutionary name Romanovo. It was transformed into the center of a volost, which was governed by a German officer. A burgomaster and elder were appointed from the locals. A police station was located in the school building. The fascists harbored special hatred for former Soviet workers, activists of the collective farm system, and Jews. In the fall of 1941, the fascists shot the Jews of Lenino. I questioned the elders and, based on their stories, determined where the Jews were shot. It was not far from the monuments erected to commemorate the battle with the Germans, in which Poles participated in October 1943. After the war, land reclamation was carried out here, and the area has now completely changed.

To find the exact place of the tragedy, I also questioned the former chairman of the village council, Nikolai Filippovich Vershilo, who in the 1960s was engaged in reburial of the remains of the shot Jews. He accurately described the execution site. At that time, the Vidnaya and Nereya rivers flowed nearby and merged into one. The anti-tank ditches, which became the grave, were dug in the summer of 1941 near an impassable swamp.”

I collected testimonies of witnesses to the shootings, people who survived the occupation in Lenino. Here are their testimonies: “When the Germans entered the village, they initially behaved calmly, probably considering the outcome of the war decided. Before the shooting, German soldiers entered every house and warned us not to hide Jews. There were quite a few in our village. Some left hoping to survive. Those who had nowhere to go stayed home and tried to hide. I remember how Aunt Olga, who lived across the street from us, came to my father’s house. She said that late at night Minin came to her house and asked for something to eat for himself and his wife Basya. It turned out the Minins were hiding in Aunt Olga’s yard, and she did not know about it. She told no one about this visit. But someone reported it. The next day, a German officer with soldiers and a translator came to Aunt’s house. The officer shouted and threatened to shoot Aunt and her son for hiding Jews.”

Aunt insisted there was no one in the house except her son. Then the Germans went to the yard and pulled the Minin couple out of the haystack. The German officer immediately ordered to lock their hosts in the house and set it on fire. Our whole family: my mother, grandfather, grandmother, and I, as well as neighbors, begged the Germans to spare Aunt and her son. We cried, or rather wailed. The Germans relented, but the Minin couple was taken away. I never saw them again...

The adults were shot by the Germans, and since the parents held their children by the hands, the children could fall alive into the pits. It rained, and water mixed with the blood of these unfortunate people stood in the pits. After the burial, the pits breathed for a long time; apparently, there were living people there.”

Before the war, a young, pretty Jewish teacher of German was sent to our school. I don’t remember her surname, but her name was Tsilei Kievna. When the Germans came, they took her as a translator. The German commandant saved her from execution. But this became known, and he was sent to the front as punishment, and the teacher was shot near the collective farm workshops. Her last words were: ‘Goodbye, they are taking me to be shot.’

In the early 1960s, a monument was erected at the site of the shooting of members of the Jewish community on October 7, 1941, in the Beliy Ruchey tract. In 1995 and 2005, major repairs were carried out at the memorial.

In 2005, the names of the dead were engraved on memorial plaques installed on the “Mourning Mother” monument and published in the book “Memory. Historical and Documentary Chronicle of the Goretsky District” (1996) and the book “Goretsky Jewish Community: Pages of History” (2009).

In Jerusalem, at the Yad Vashem Memorial Museum in the “Valley of Communities,” among the names of cities where the extermination of Jews took place during the Holocaust, one can read in Hebrew and English — “Gorki” and “Gory.”