Drahichyn Ghetto

Drahichyn Ghetto (Дрогичинское гетто) (July 1941 – October 15, 1942) was a Jewish ghetto, a place of forced relocation for the Jews of the city of Drogichin in the Brest Region during the Holocaust in Belarus under the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Occupation of Drogichin and Establishment of the Ghetto

In the pre-war years, among the 3,125 residents of Drogichin, there were 1,521 Jews – about half of the population. Before the war, there were 2,675 Jews in the city. The city was captured by the Wehrmacht on June 25, 1941, and remained under occupation for over three years, until July 17, 1944.

In July 1941, the Germans herded all the remaining Jews in the city into the ghetto, forcing them under threat of death to sew yellow patches in the shape of stars onto the front and back of their clothing.

Conditions in the Ghetto

The Drogichin ghetto was located west of the bridge, bordered by Lenin, Pervomayskaya, Oktyabrskaya, and Pushkin streets. The ghetto was enclosed by a tall wooden fence with no gaps, topped with barbed wire. By the end of July 1941, the Nazis forced the Jews to organize a Judenrat. Soon, over 1,000 Jews – both local and those driven from nearby villages such as Shereshevo, Khomski, Gutovo, and others – were crammed into the ghetto, living in dreadful overcrowding with 40-50 people per house.

The Drogichin ghetto was soon divided into two sections, with movement between them prohibited. One section housed craftsmen, who were forced to make clothes and shoes for the Germans, along with wealthier Jews who were extorted for valuables. The other section held the infirm and poor Jews, who were the first planned for execution, and they were gradually taken away in groups for mass shootings at Bronnaya Gora.

Liquidation of the Ghetto

From late summer 1942, the Nazis, as part of Hitler's plan for the extermination of Jews, began the widespread liquidation of the last ghettos. By this time, the number of prisoners in the Drogichin ghetto had significantly decreased, as Jews whose professions were not urgently needed by the Germans, along with their wives and children, had been taken and killed at the extermination camp at Bronnaya Gora.

Before the complete destruction of the ghetto, the remaining Drogichin Jews were mostly shot at night near the prison, in the cemetery area in the city center. During these “actions” (a euphemism used by the Nazis for organized mass killings), the doomed people were tied together with barbed wire, shot, and their bodies thrown into pits. Witnesses reported that the Germans and collaborators did not finish off the wounded, but buried them alive with the dead.

In 1942, Jews from an agricultural settlement (officially called “Colony”) located between the villages of Gutovo and Ogdemer were also driven into the Drogichin ghetto and killed along with the Drogichin Jews.

The ghetto was finally liquidated on October 15, 1942. Belarusian police under the command of SS officers, with dogs, drove the last prisoners of the ghetto, including elderly people and children, to the killing site. For the destruction of the last Drogichin Jews, a mass grave was prepared in the southern part of the town, at the “Dubovaya Struga” area, 100 meters from the railway, near a warehouse and the railway station. The doomed were forced to undress in the warehouse, led to the edge of the pit, and shot with a machine gun. Those who tried to escape were killed by the Germans and policemen guarding the area. A total of at least 3,816 Jews were killed in this pit.

After the Ghetto’s Liquidation

After the shootings, the Nazis forced local men and even teenagers to bury the bodies. Witnesses reported that attempts to refuse were met with threats: “If you don't want to bury the Jews, we'll bury you”.

After the liberation of Drogichin from German occupation, the Extraordinary State Commission found several mass graves. The largest number of bodies was found in the cemetery area near the district consumer union – 3,816 bodies (895 men, 1,083 women, and 1,838 children), many with skull fractures, dislocated limbs, broken extremities and ribs, and mutilated faces. In the center of Drogichin, 150 bodies were found in 11 graves, and 250 bodies in 13 graves 300 meters from the Jewish cemetery in the “Zalesye” area.

Of the total number of 4,991 people killed during the three years of occupation in Drogichin and nearby areas, 3,338 were Jews – including residents of Drogichin itself, refugees, and Jews relocated to Drogichin from other ghettos.

Before retreating, the Germans tried to hide the traces of their crimes by forcing local peasants to exhume and burn the bodies. According to witnesses, such fires burned near the villages of Khomsk (where around 2,000 Jews were killed in August 1941 on the northern outskirts) and Gutovo. The Germans did not allow the locals to approach the burning bodies and threatened to shoot anyone who came closer. However, even after the fires, traces of the Nazis’ atrocities were visible.

Memory

In the 1970s, the mass grave of the Jews murdered in Drogichin was surrounded by a low concrete fence, and the inscription on the obelisk erected on it was changed. As of August 2011, there was no memorial sign on the mass grave of Jews near the railway.