Valozhyn or Volozhin (Belarusian: Валожын, romanized: Valožyn,[a] IPA: [vaˈɫoʐɨn]; Russian: Воложин; Lithuanian: Valažinas; Polish: Wołożyn; Yiddish: וואָלאָזשין)[2] is a town in Minsk Region, Belarus.

Half of the town square is framed by the remains of 12th century buildings, including a bell tower, a palace, and a monastery.

The town was known for its fertile land, mainly supporting flax growing, as well as livestock farming of horses and cattle.

It was closed by the authorities in 1892, but, by that time, had spawned a large number of similar institutions in Belarus, Russia and Lithuania.

On the night of June 24–25, 1941, following the German invasion of the USSR, the NKVD started the evacuation of inmates from the local prison.

[6] On the fourth day of Operation Barbarossa, on 25 June 1941[7] Valozhyn was bombed, captured by troops of the German Army Group Centre and mostly burned.

On his second day as mayor, he ordered the arrest of the town doctor along with his daughter, and 10 other Jewish people, who were savagely beaten and shot.

[10] The Jews, as well as Russian prisoners in the area, were subjected to forced labour, tortured, underfed, and many of them publicly murdered.

Local Christians who were caught having mercy or assisting the Jews in giving food received a similar fate.

On October 28, 1941,[11] The head of the Gestapo, named Moka, ordered all the Jews in the ghetto to stand at a lecture of his, on work ethics.

Public killings continued, including an incident where several Jews were forced to lie down on a spread Torah Scroll and were subsequently shot.

They entered the ghetto, killed the two Jewish policemen at the gate, and then began shooting and gathering the Jews into a large blacksmith shop, where they set a table with drinks surrounded by machine guns.

A short while afterward the remaining Jews of Valozhyn were taken to the graveyard, forced to dig a large pit and were then buried alive by tractors and tanks who drove over them.