Obj. ID: 48046 Third Holocaust memorial at the kiling site in Horovakha (Gorovakha), Selishche village near Slutsk, Belarus, 2006
Who is Commemorated?
Jews of Slutsk who were killed in this place
Description
This memorial is located within a square enclosure marked by a black metal fence.
The main body of the memorial is a cube covered in black stone panels that sits on a base made of brick and concrete. the top panel of the cube has a smaller rectangular stone sitting atop it that holds up a stone plaque with an inscription.
Inscriptions
In Russian:
Здесь с 1941-1942 годах
были расстреляны
свыше 8000 евреев
жертв фашистского
геноцида
Память потомков
Translation: Here in 1941-1942 about 8,000 Jews – victims of the Fascist genocide were shot to death. Memory of descendants
Commissioned by
Jewish community of Slutsk
3 image(s)
In 1939 7,392 Jews resided in the town, comprising 33.7 percent of the total population.
The Germans occupied Slutsk on June 27, 1941. On October 27-28, 1941 the first major mass murder of Slutsk Jews took place. At the end of 1941-beginning of 1942 two ghettos were established: the "field ghetto" (on the northern outskirts of Slutsk) where Jews unable to work were imprisoned, and the "town ghetto" for working Jews (situated in the old Jewish quarter of the town, Shkolishche), closer to the town center. The "field ghetto" was gradually liquidated in the spring of 1942. On February 8, 1943, the Germans liquidated the "town ghetto."
The mass murder in the Horovakha (Gorovakha) ravine near the village of Selishche (approximately 10 kilometers west of Slutsk) took place on October 27-28, 1941. On October 27, 1941, units of the 11th Reserve Police Battalion surrounded the Slutsk ghetto. German and Lithuanian Battalion members drove the Jews to the market square. At the market square, the Jews underwent a selection, during which several specialists were set apart. The rest of the Jews were ordered to hand over all the valuables in their possession and were then taken to pits in the Horovakha (Gorovakha) ravine and shot there. Some of the Jews were locked overnight into barracks and shot the next day. Figures for the total number of victims of this massacre vary from 3,400 (according to German sources) to 8,000 (according to Soviet sources). [Untold Stories]
The first memorial in Horovakha (Gorovakha), where the mass murder took place on October 27-28, 1941, was erected in 1951 [Smilovitsky] or 1956 [Untold Stories]. Gradually the memorial was dilapidating; in 1998 the second memorial was rebuilt in its place. The second memorial was destroyed in 2006; a third memorial was erected on its base.
Next to the memorial to the Jewish victims, there is a memorial to two non-Jewish local residents who were shot in 1942.
"Slutsk,"
Untold Stories - Murder Sites of Jews in Occupied Territories of the USSR (Yad Vashem project), https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/untold-stories/community/14621542-Slutsk.
Smilovitsky, Leonid. "Po sledam evreiskikh kladbishch Belarusi. Slutsk," Masterskaia, April 25, 2019 [In Russian]., https://club.berkovich-zametki.com/?p=46806 (accessed February 28, 2023)