Obj. ID: 34216
Memorials New Holocaust Memorial in Pukhavichy (Pukhovichi), Belarus, 2017
Memorial Name
No official name
Who/What is Commemorated?
1,260 Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Pukhavichy (Pukhovichi) Mariyana Gorka, killed in September 1941.
Description:
The monument is an upright stele of an irregular shape standing on a granite base. In the upper part of the stele, the menorah is depicted. The monument bears three non-identical inscriptions: in Belarusian, English, and Hebrew. The inscriptions are framed with long strips on their right and left sides. At the bottom of the monument, there is an additional inscription identifying the foundations that erected the monument.
Inscription
In Belarusian:
Ахвярам нацызму.
Тут у верасні 1941 года, былі расстраляны 1260 яўрэяў
з гарадскога пасёлка Мар'іна Горка і з вёскі Пухавічы.
Вы назаўсёды ў нашай памяці
Translation: To the victims of Nazism. / Here in September 1941, 1260 Jews of the urban settlement of Mariyana Gorka and the village of Pukhavichy were shot. / You are forever in our memory.
In English:
To the victims of Nazism.
1260 Jews from the town of Maryina Gorka
and the village of Pukhovichy
were brutally murdered here
in September 1941.
Mourn and remember
In Hebrew:
לזכר 1260 קורבנות היהודים
מהעיר מרינה הורקה
והכפר פוחוביצ'י הי"ד
שנרצחו על ידי הנאצים
במקום הזה
בספטמבר 1941
ת. נ. צ. ב. ה
Translation: In memory of 1,260 Jewish victims / from the town of Mariyana Gorka / and the village of Pukhavichy, may God avenge their blood / that were killed by the Nazis / at this place / in September 1941 / May their souls be bound in the bundle of life.
At the bottom of the monument, in English:
This memorial was erected through the efforts of
Belarusian Jewish Community and thanks to
to the Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation, UK,
the Miles and Marilyn Kletter Family Foundation, USA,
the Warren and Beverly Geisler Family Foundation, USA.
Commissioned by
The Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation, the Miles and Marilyn Kletter Family Foundation, and the Warren and Beverly Geisler Family Foundation.
sub-set tree: 
Pukhavichy (Pukhovichi) was occupied in June 1941. The local Jews were murdered on September 22 of the same year [Al'tman 824].
The commemoration began in 1947 when the two firing pits at the Popova Gorka murder site were covered with concrete slabs and on them, the monument was erected. In the second half of the 1940s, the Jewish cemetery spontaneously was established at the place of the monument: the victims' relatives wished to be buried near their beloved ones. In the 1960s this practice was forbidden by the local authorities [Smilovitsky].
In 2017 a present monument was erected near the old one. It is one of the about 100 monuments erected by the Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation, the Miles and Marilyn Kletter Family Foundation, and the Warren and Beverly Geisler Family Foundation in the 2000s [Belarus Holocaust Memorial Project]. Soon after the monument's erection, the representatives of the American Society of the Pukhavichy (Pukhovichi) descendants initiated the creation of the Pukhavichy (Pukhovichi) Memorial Park at the murder site [puchovichimemorial.org]. With the beginning of its construction that subsequently stopped, the monument under discussion was relocated to the town's center, near the Village Council and the World War II memorial [Smilovitsky]. Today it is a place of commemorative ceremonies.
In the same Jewish cemetery where the monument originally was erected, there is another monument dedicated to the Holocaust events: a private memorial to the Idelchik family killed in that place.
Belarus Holocaust Memorial Project, https://www.belarusmemorials.com/.
Il'ya, Al'tman (ed.), Kholokost na territorii SSSR (Moskva: ROSSPEN, 2011), p.824.
Puchovichi Memorial Park, https://puchovichimemorial.org/ (accessed February 27, 2025)
Smilovitskii, Leonid, "Po sledam evreiskikh kladbishch Belarusi: Pukhavichy," Zhurnal-gazeta "Masterskaia," ed. Evgenii Berkovich., https://club.berkovich-zametki.com/?p=53876 (accessed January 15, 2024)