Minsk Ghetto

[2] The ghetto was created on 28 June 1941, soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and capture of the city of Minsk, capital of the Byelorussian SSR.

[2] The total population of the ghetto was about 80,000 (over 100,000 according to some sources), of whom about 50,000 were pre-war inhabitants, and the remainder (30,000 or more) were refugees and Jews forcibly resettled by the Germans from nearby settlements.

[3] Ghetto inhabitants lived in extremely poor conditions, with insufficient stocks of food and medical supplies.

[3] Approximately fifty German and Austrian Jews from the Sonderghetto survived the war, mostly young men who were deported from the ghetto to Poland.

[2] The Minsk Ghetto is notable for its large scale resistance organization, which cooperated closely with Soviet partisans.

[1][2][3] Barbara Epstein estimates that 30,000 Jews escaped the Minsk Ghetto to join the partisans, with half of them accounted for.

Map of the Minsk Ghetto by professor Barbara Epstein
Jews in the Minsk Ghetto, 1941
The monument to victims of Minsk ghetto at Pritytskogo street, Minsk, Belarus
The "Pit memorial" with obelisk on the left (obscured) and group sculpture on the staircase on the right.
Mikhail Gebelev, Head of Resistance