Obj. ID: 25207 Holocaust Monument in Beshenkovichi, Belarus, 1958
Memorial name:
No official name.
Who is Commemorated?
1,068 Jews of Beshenkovichi, shot to death on February 11, 1942.
Description
The monument at the killing site and the mass grave of the Jews from Beshenkovichi is erected in the Strelka Forest. It is shaped like an upright stele of an irregular shape that stands on a two-step pedestal. The surface of the monument bears two non-identical inscriptions: In Yiddish and Russian.
The territory of the monument is surrounded by a fence.
Inscription
In Yiddish:
פ״נ
1068
אומשנלרינ (?)-פערניכטעטע
סוועטישע בירגער
פון די פאשיסטישע הענט (?)
כד שבט תש׳׳ב
Translation: Here lie / 1068 / [...] / Soviet citizens / died at the hands of fascists / Shvat 24, 5,702.
In Russian:
Вечная память
1,068 советским
гражданам погибшим
от рук гитлировцев
11.2 - 1942 г.
От родственников и земляков.
Translation: To the eternal memory / of 1,068 Soviet citizens who died / at the hands of the Hitlerites / 11.2 - 1942. / From relatives and townsmen.
Commissioned by
The victims' relatives and townsmen.
Beshenkovichi was occupied by the Germans on July 6, 1941. Soon thereafter, a ghetto was set up, and the Jews were forced into it. In February 1942, 1,068 Beshenkovichi's Jews were killed in one murder operation on the banks of the Zapadnaya (Western) Dvina River [Yad Vashem: The Untold Stories].
The memorization of the killing site and mass grave of the local Jews took place in 1958. Since its dedication, the monument has been vandalized several times [Walke, 190].
"Beshenkovichi,"
Untold Stories - Murder Sites of Jews in Occupied Territories of the USSR (Yad Vashem project), https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/untold-stories/community/14621628-Beshenkovichi.
Walke, Anika, "Split Memory: The Geography of Holocaust Memory and Amnesia in Belarus," Slavic Review. Vol. 77, No. 1 (Spring 2018): 174-197., https://www.jstor.org/stable/26565354?seq=17 (accessed February 6, 2024)