The Holocaust in the Byaroza District

The Holocaust in the Byaroza District was the systematic persecution and extermination of Jews in the Byaroza District of the Brest Region by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941 to 1944 during World War II. This atrocity was part of the broader "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", which aimed at the complete annihilation of European Jewry and formed an integral part of the Holocaust in Belarus.

The Holocaust in the Byaroza District
Monument to the inhabitants of the village of Malech (including Jews) killed by the Nazis
Location	Byaroza District
Date	1941 to 1944

Genocide of Jews in the District

The Byaroza District was fully occupied by German troops in June 1941. The Nazis incorporated the district into the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, under the General District of Volhynia-Podolia. The district was governed by the Nazi military occupation administration, which operated through field and local commandant's offices established by the Wehrmacht. Local Belarusian collaborators were appointed to district (volost) administrations and police garrisons in all major villages.

To implement their genocidal policies and conduct punitive operations, the Nazis deployed SS punitive units, Einsatzgruppen, Sonderkommandos, the Secret Field Police (GFP), the Security Police and SD, the gendarmerie, and the Gestapo to the district immediately following the occupation. Concurrently, the Nazis and their collaborators began the total extermination of the Jewish population. Euphemistically referred to as "actions," these mass murders were repeated multiple times in various locations. Jews who were not killed immediately were confined to ghettos until they were eventually exterminated.

Jews were subjected to brutal forced labor under inhumane conditions, leading to numerous deaths from overwork, starvation, and lack of medical care. During the occupation, nearly all Jews in the Byaroza District were killed. The Germans and police relentlessly hunted down every Jew, regardless of the effort and time required. For instance, in 1942, a Jewish teenage girl was discovered in the village of Lisichitsy (Belozersky Village Council). A group of policemen led by Yuzefovich I. N., who later became the deputy commandant of the Peskovskaya volost police, was sent to capture her. She was apprehended, taken to Peski, and subsequently sent to the ghetto in Bereza. Near the village of Peshki, local policemen tracked down and eventually killed a Jewish family of eight who had escaped from the Drogichin ghetto. Their remains were discovered and reburied in 2012 at the Jewish cemetery in the village of Motykaly.

Bronnaya Gora monument

The most significant massacres of Jews in the district occurred at:

• Bronna Góra: By November 1942, over 50,000 people, the vast majority of whom were Jews, were killed at Bronaya Gora.

• Byaroza ghetto: Over 8,000 Jews were killed.

• Near the village of Smolyarka (Sokolovsky Village Council): More than 3,000 Jews were killed.

Anti-Jewish Regulations

The following is an excerpt from Administrative Order No. 1 issued by General von Schenckendorff, commander of the rear of Army Group Center, on July 7, 1941. This order mandated specific identification marks for Jews and imposed severe restrictions on their interactions and movements:

From Administrative Order No. 1 by General von Schenckendorff, Commander of the Rear of Army Group Center, dated July 7, 1941:

III. Identification Marks for Jews

All Jews and Jewesses residing in the occupied Russian territory who are 10 years old and above are immediately required to wear a white band, 10 cm wide, with a painted Zionist star, or a yellow band, 10 cm wide, on the right sleeve of their outer garment or dress. Jews and Jewesses must provide these armbands themselves. It is strictly forbidden to greet Jews. Violators will be severely punished by the local commandant at their place of residence.

Ghetto

Ghetto Byaroza

The occupation authorities imposed strict regulations on Jews, forbidding them, under threat of death, from removing yellow patches or six-pointed stars from their outer clothing, leaving the ghetto without special permission, changing their place of residence within the ghetto, walking on sidewalks, using public transport, entering parks and public places, and attending schools. The Germans, following Hitler's program of extermination, established three ghettos in the district:

In the two ghettos in the town of Bereza (July 1941 - October 15, 1942), more than 8,000 Jews were killed either on the spot or taken and killed elsewhere.

In the ghetto in the village of Malech (summer 1941 - October 1941), 750 Jews were held before being transferred and killed in the Bereza ghetto.

Righteous Among the Nations

In the Byaroza District, three individuals were honored with the title "Righteous Among the Nations" by the Israeli memorial institute Yad Vashem for their assistance to Jews during World War II: Pyotr, Maria, and Yevgeny Senkevich, who saved Adam Epelbaum in the village of Yasevichi.

Memory

Several monuments and memorials have been erected to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust in the Byaroza District:

A monument at one of the mass murder sites in Bereza.

Two monuments and a memorial plaque at Bronaya Gora.

A memorial sign in the Smolyarka area.

In Malech, a monument dedicated to all the peaceful residents of the village, including Jews, who were killed by the Nazis during the occupation, with a separate plaque honoring the victims of the Jewish genocide.

Incomplete lists of Jews killed in the district have also been published.