Maly Trostenets Explained

Maly Trostenets (Maly Trascianiec,, "Little Trostenets") is a village near Minsk in Belarus, formerly the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. During Nazi Germany's occupation of the area during World War II (when the Germans referred to it as Reichskommissariat Ostland), the village became the location of a Nazi extermination site.^[1]

Throughout 1942, Jews from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were taken by train to Maly Trostenets to be lined up in front of the pits and were shot.^[1] From the summer of 1942, mobile gas vans were also used.^[2] According to Yad Vashem, the Jews of Minsk were murdered and buried in Maly Trostenets and in another village, Bolshoi Trostinets, between 28 and 31 July 1942 and on 21 October 1943.^[1] As the Red Army approached the area in June 1944, the Germans murdered most of the prisoners and destroyed the camp.^[1]

The estimates of how many people were murdered at Maly Trostenets vary. According to Yad Vashem, 65,000 Jews were murdered in one of the nearby pine forests, mostly by shooting.^[3] Holocaust historian Stephan Lehnstaedt believes the number is higher, writing that at least 106,000 Jews were murdered at the location. Researchers from the Soviet Union estimated there had been around 200,000 murders at the camp and nearby execution sites. Lehnstaedt writes that the estimates include the Jews of the Minsk Ghetto, who numbered 39,000 to almost 100,000.^[4]

Camp establishment and destruction

The primary purpose of the camp was the murder of Jewish prisoners of the Minsk Ghetto and the surrounding area. Firing squad was the chief execution method. Mobile gas vans were also deployed. Baltic German SS-Scharführer Heinrich Eiche was the camp administrator.^[5] As the Red Army approached the camp in June 1944,^[6] toward the end of World War II, between June 28 and June 30, the Germans murdered the majority of prisoners by locking them inside of the camps, burning their barracks, and when anyone tried to escape the burning building they were shot.^{[7] [8] [9]} By June 30 the entire camp had been destroyed, however, a few Jewish prisoners were able to escape into the surrounding Blagovshchina forest and survive until July 3 when the approaching Red Army reached the decimated camp.^{[7] [8] [9]}

After the war

Victims

The names of 10,000 Austrian Jews murdered in Maly Trostenets were collected in a book, Maly Trostinec – Das Totenbuch: Den Toten ihre Namen, by Waltraud Barton.^[10]

• Cora Berliner (most likely)
• Grete Forst
• JUDr. Walter Krafft, Austrian Lawyer, cousin of Kurt Adler, including his wife Lilly Sara Krafft
• Mitzi Freud and Paula Winternitz née Freud
• Arthur Ernst Rutra, author and translator
• Vincent Hadleŭski [Wincenty Godlewski], Roman Catholic priest and Belarusian nationalist resistance fighter ( 1888), arrested in Minsk on 24 December 1942 and shot at Trostenets the same day.
• Margarete Hilferding (in transit to the camp from Terezín)
• Norbert Jokl (debated)

Memorial

A memorial complex has been built at the site of the camp.

See also

• List of Nazi concentration camps
• Nazi concentration camps

Further reading

• Kohl, Paul (1995). Der Krieg der deutschen Wehrmacht und der Polizei, 1941–1944: sowjetische Überlebende berichten. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag (includes a photograph of the camp).
• Spector . Shmuel . Aktion 1005 – Effacing the Murder of Millions . Holocaust and Genocide Studies . 1990 . 5 . 2 . 157–173 . 10.1093/hgs/5.2.157.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Maly Trostinets . . https://web.archive.org/web/20031129165451/http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%206636.pdf . 29 November 2003 . live.
2. Book: Heberer . Patricia . Heberer . Patricia . Matthäus . Jürgen . Atrocities on Trial: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Prosecuting War Crimes . 2008 . University of Nebraska Press . Lincoln and London . Justice in Austrian Courts? The Case of Josef W. and Austria's Difficult Relationship with Its Past. 131.
3. Web site: Maly Trostenets, Camp, Belorussia (USSR) . The International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem. https://web.archive.org/web/20190605001131/http://db.yadvashem.org/deportation/place.html?language=en&itemId=9193290. 5 June 2019. live.
4. Book: Lehnstaedt . Stephan . Occupation in the East: The Daily Lives of German Occupiers in Warsaw and Minsk, 1939–1944 . 2016 . 2010 . Berghahn Books . New York and Oxford . 978-1-78533-323-1. 30.
5. Book: Kohl, Paul . Das Vernichtungslager Trostenez: Augenzeugenberichte und Dokumente . Internationales Bildungs- und Begegnungswerk IBB . 102–111 . 2003 . 9783935950077 . 2021-10-26 . 2022-02-12 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220212032418/https://books.google.com/books?id=9hgtAQAAIAAJ&q=Eiche+Trostenez . live .
6. Web site: Contraction Camps: Maly Trostiets . Jewish Virtual Library . 2019-11-25 . 2019-04-19 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190419170844/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/maly-trostenets-concentration-camp . live .
7. Web site: Maly Trostinets The Death Camp near Minsk . Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team . 2019-11-25 . 2019-11-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191121115944/http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/malytrost.html . live .
8. Web site: Maly Trostinets Camp . Holocaust Historical Society . Holocaust Historical Society . 2019-11-25 . 2019-07-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190724000901/https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety.org.uk/contents/naziseasternempire/malytrostinetscamp.html . live .
9. Web site: Maly Trostinets . Aktion Reinhard Camps . 2019-11-25 . 2014-07-01 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140701122443/http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/maly%20trostinec.html . live .
10. Web site: Book presentation: Maly Trostinec – das Totenbuch: Den Toten ihre Namen geben . Jewish Museum Vienna . 1 October 2015 . 5 June 2019 . 5 June 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190605001650/http://www.jmw.at/en/events/book-presentation-maly-trostinec-das-totenbuch-den-toten-ihre-namen-geben . live .