The Holocaust in the Kamyenyets District is the systematic persecution and extermination of Jews in the Kamyenyets District of the Brest Region by the occupying authorities of Nazi Germany and collaborators from 1941 to 1944 during World War II, as part of the policy of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" — an integral part of the Holocaust in Belarus and the Catastrophe of European Jewry.
| From Administrative Order No. 1 of the Commander of the Rear of Army Group "Center" General von Schenckendorff dated July 7, 1941:[1] [2] «III. Distinctive signs for Jews 1. All Jews, both male and female, on the occupied Russian territory and aged 10 years and older, are immediately required to wear on the right sleeve of their outer clothing and dresses a white band 10 cm wide with a drawn Zionist star or a yellow band 10 cm wide. 2. Such bands are to be provided by the Jews themselves. 3. Jews are strictly prohibited from being greeted. Violators will be severely punished by the local commandant at their place of residence». |
The Kamyenyets District was fully occupied by German forces on June 24, 1941, and the occupation lasted until July 24, 1944. The Nazis incorporated the district into the Bialystok district of the General District of Belarus within the Reichskommissariat Ostland, as part of the province of East Prussia. Control over the district was maintained by the Nazi military occupation administration through field and local commandant's offices established by the Wehrmacht. Belarusian collaborators managed district (volost) administrations and police garrisons in major villages.[3]
To implement the genocide policy and conduct punitive operations, SS punitive units, Einsatzgruppen, Sonderkommandos, the Secret Field Police (GFP), the Security Police and SD, the gendarmerie, and the Gestapo were deployed to the district. Upon occupation, the Nazis and their accomplices began the systematic extermination of Jews. "Actions" (mass murders) were frequently carried out across various locations. In some settlements, Jews were initially confined to ghettos and used for forced labor under inhumane conditions, resulting in high mortality due to overwork, starvation, and lack of medical care.[4]
The occupation authorities enforced numerous restrictions on Jews, including mandatory wearing of yellow patches or six-pointed stars, prohibition from leaving the ghetto without permission, changing residences within the ghetto, walking on sidewalks, using public transport, being in parks and public places, and attending schools. Nearly all Jews in the Kamyenyets District were killed, with survivors often joining partisan detachments.
The exact number of Jews killed in the district remains uncertain. Historian Musevich G.S. estimates that 6,921 Jews were killed, constituting 16% of the district's population. Jews were massacred in locations such as Bolshie Muriny (140 people), Bolshaya Turna, Kamenyuki, Svinevo, Leshno, and Zamostye (now part of Kamyenyets). Jews from the agricultural colonies of Abramovo and Sarevo were deported and killed in ghettos in Bialystok and Kamyenyets, respectively. In 1942, approximately 200 Jewish men were gathered and shot near the village of Malaya Turna. In the spring of 1942, Jews from Bolshaya Turna, Vidomlya, and Kamyenyets were executed in the "Rovets" tract near Bolshie Muriny. Some Jews from Vidomlya and Baranki were sent to the Pruzhany and Volchin ghettos and killed there in 1942. The last known execution of Jews in the district occurred in 1944, when two Jewish families (nine people) who had fallen behind a partisan unit were killed in the forest between Chvirki and Belev.[5]
The Germans, implementing the Nazi program of exterminating Jews, created 4 ghettos in the district.
Incomplete lists of the genocide victims in the Kamyenyets District have been published. Monuments commemorating the murdered Jews have been erected in Volchin, Vysokoye, and Kamyenyets. However, many sites of mass killings remain unmarked and unmemorialized.