July 25, 1941: Nazis established a Jewish ghetto in Vitebsk, where about 20,000 Jews were tortured and killed

🕯On July 25, 1941, the Nazis established a Jewish ghetto in occupied Vitebsk, where about 20,000 Jews were tortured and murdered.

Facts about the ghetto:

🔘 The territory was fenced with barbed wire and guarded around the clock.

🔘 Leaving the ghetto was strictly forbidden under threat of immediate execution.

🔘 The area mostly consisted of buildings destroyed by bombings; Jews had to huddle in ruins or build makeshift shelters.

🔘 Prisoners died from hunger and cold; by mid-October 1941, about 10,000 people had died.

🔘 Mass executions were carried out in the ghetto: adult Jews were shot, children and the elderly were buried alive.

🔘 On December 19, 1941, the last prisoners of the Vitebsk ghetto were killed.

🔘 Vitebsk worker M. Zheleznyak wrote in a letter to his son at the front:

"The Germans put hardened criminals on oars. These bandits rowed women, children, and the elderly to the middle of the river, threw them out and drowned them. Those who tried to save themselves were beaten to death with oars. Germans on the shore photographed this 'ferry crossing'."

🗣Crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations. The executioners and their ideological heirs will not escape responsibility. Belarus remembers.

More details about the tragedy of the Vitebsk ghetto are available in our infographic.

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