Obj. ID: 33151
Jewish Funerary Art Holocaust memorial at the reburial site in Haradzeya (Gorodeya), Belarus, 1990
Who is Commemorated?
Jews of Haradzeya killed in the Holocaust
Description
This stele, carved from rough granite, sits atop a concrete base. its front and side faces are smooth and polished, but its back and top remain rough. It bears an inscription in Belarussian, but the inscription does not mention Jews specifically, only "civilians."
Inscription
In Belurussian:
На гэтым
месцы пахаваныя
астанкі больш
за тысячу
мірных жыхароў
г.п. Гарадзея якія
загінулі ад рук
фашыстаў у гады
Вялікай Айчыннай
вайны
1941-1944
Translation: Here buried remnants of more than one thousand civilians of Haradzeya that were killed by Fascists during the Great Patriotic War // 1941 -1944
Commissioned by
The Local Jewish Community
2 image(s)
sub-set tree:
In September 1939, World War II broke out, and Haradzeya was occupied by the Soviets. By 1941, because of the influx of hundreds of Jewish refugees from the German-occupied areas of western Poland, the Jewish population of the village had grown to more than 1,100. In June 1941, the Soviet-German War began, and German troops entered Haradzeya on June 26.
Sometime in the fall of 1941, a ghetto was established in Haradzeya. On July 18 (or July 17, according to other sources), 1942, the Nazis liquidated the Haradzeya Ghetto. The inmates were assembled in the square and subjected to abuse, with some of them being killed on the spot. The survivors were then taken to a disused sand quarry and shot with machine guns.
Haradzeya was liberated by the Red Army on July 4, 1944.
In 1964, the Jewish victims were partially reburied in the area between the former cemeteries of Stoplce and Haradzeya. In 1990, a stele was erected at this reburial site. [Untold Stories]
"Horodziej,"
Untold Stories - Murder Sites of Jews in Occupied Territories of the USSR (Yad Vashem project), https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/untold-stories/community/14622478.
Smilovitsky, Leonid. "Gorodeya," Most, June 05 and 12, 2019, no. 991, 992 [In Russian], https://cja.huji.ac.il/external_texts_db/Haradzeya_Most_05_06_2019_12_06_2019.pdf (accessed February 28, 2023)