The Pit (memorial)

The Pit (Belarusian: Яма, romanized: Yama) is a monument dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust on the corner of Melnikayte and Zaslavskaya streets in Minsk, Belarus.

The memorial is located at the site where, on 2 March 1942, Nazi forces shot about 5,000 Jewish residents of the nearby Minsk Ghetto.

The sculpture was created by the Belarusian artist and Chairman of the Jewish communities of Belarus, Leonid Levin, and the sculptor Elsa Pollak from Israel.

On the obelisk is written in Russian and Yiddish, "To the shining memory of the bright days of five thousand Jews who perished at the hands of sworn enemies of humanity, German-fascist butchers, on 2 March 1942."

According to the original plan, the memorial was intended to be more detailed, but was ultimately left with an expressive aestheticism, devoid of national colours.