September 10, 1941: Nazis destroyed the Yanovichi Ghetto

🕯On September 10, 1941, the Nazis destroyed the Yanovichi Ghetto.

👉The ghetto in Vitebsk District existed for only 16 days — from August 25 to September 10. Of the 2,037 residents of the settlement, 709 were Jews. German forces entered on July 12. They registered all Jews, killing many immediately. Elderly doctor Yefim Lifshits, who spoke German, was used as a translator.

☠️First, the Nazis killed men aged 15 to 50, then teenagers and the elderly, and finally women, children, and infants. Children under three were not shot, bayoneted, or bludgeoned — they were thrown alive into pits with the bodies of their mothers and fathers, covered with earth until their desperate cries ceased.

In the final group of those executed was Dr. Lifshits: his abdomen was slit open, and he was thrown onto the bodies of his dead wife and three-year-old grandson.

Today, a monument to the victims of genocide stands at the site of the tragedy.