This Became Possible Thanks To Solidarity Of Jews And Belarusians

The history of the Minsk ghetto is a unique example of resistance to totalitarianism.

80 years ago, on October 21, 1943, the Nazis destroyed the Minsk ghetto. In Belarus, both in Soviet times and under the dictatorship of Lukashenka, they hid the truth about the uniqueness of this ghetto and the heroic struggle that Jews and Belarusians waged against the fascist occupiers.

250 ghettos were created on the territory of Belarus. The Minsk ghetto was the second largest in the German-occupied territory of the USSR after Lviv and one of the largest in all of Europe. It was home to about 100,000 people: about 80,000 Belarusian Jews and more than 20,000 deportees from Europe.

Once I read the book by the leader of the Minsk ghetto underground, Girsh Smolyar, “The Ghetto Avengers.” And it shocked me!

Of course, this is not an easy read. Describing the horror of life in the Minsk ghetto, in which more than 100 thousand people were exterminated, the author made the central theme the struggle of Jews for freedom and the life of their people.

The creation of a powerful underground, the withdrawal of thousands of people into Belarusian partisan detachments, the organization of seven Jewish partisan detachments — this is incredible!

In the Minsk ghetto, an entire “infrastructure” of the underground was created in a short time: a headquarters was created in the infectious diseases hospital, where the Germans were afraid to enter, members of the resistance movement were divided into “dozens,” warehouses with weapons, medicines, and food for the partisans were created, a printing house appeared, where leaflets and newspapers were printed, radios were made to receive news from the front, hundreds of shelters were organized to hide from mass executions, doctors from ghetto hospitals helped the underground workers, the “Judenrat” had its own people, including its head Ilya Mushkin, who warned about “purges”.

The ghetto underground organized sabotage and diversions at enterprises, damaged equipment and products that went to the front for German troops, even recruited Germans and with their help took people out of the ghetto.

Just imagine: in two years, more than 5,000 prisoners were rescued from the Minsk ghetto and taken to partisan detachments!

All this became possible thanks to the solidarity of Jews and Belarusians, mutual support and joint struggle.

That is why the history of the Minsk ghetto was hushed up first by the Soviet authorities, and then by the Lukashenka regime.

And the point is not only the anti-Semitic essence of dictatorships, but also the fact that the struggle of Jews in one of the largest ghettos on the territory of the USSR is a unique example of resistance to totalitarianism.

We must remember this. I believe that when Belarus becomes free, we will bring back the memory of Belarusian and Jewish heroes and give them the honor they deserve.

Leonid Nevzlin, t.me