Vitebsk Ghetto

It was created soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union; immediately after the Nazis took control of the town on 11 July 1941.

[1] In October, the Nazi administrators declared that the poor conditions in the ghetto created a health hazard for local inhabitants and that an epidemic had started in the ghetto; in fact, this declaration was a pretext to move and massacre the Jews.

Less than three months later, on 8 October 1941, the Nazis started a massacre of the Vitebsk Jews, which ended on 11 October with the deaths of most of the ghetto's inhabitants (sources vary as to the exact number).

[2] Many bodies were disposed in the nearby Vitba river.

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