Obj. ID: 57200 New Holocaust Memorial I at the Killing Site in Orsha, Belarus, 2014
Memorial name:
No official name.
Who/What is Commemorated?
2,900 Jewish children of the Orsha Ghetto, killed on November 26-27, 1941.
Description
The monument is erected at the killing site and mass grave, near the old Jewish cemetery. It is shaped like an upright stele of an irregular shape standing on a granite base that, in turn, stands on a paved podium. In the upper part of the stele, the menorah is depicted. The monument bears three non-identical inscriptions: in Belarusian, English, and Hebrew. At the bottom of the monument, there is an additional inscription identifying the foundations that erected the monument. The monument's territory is surrounded by a fence.
Inscription
In Belarusian
Ахвярам нацызму.
Тут 26-27 лістапада 1941 г.
былі па-зверску закатаваны
яўрэйскія дзеці Аршанскага гета.
Translation: To the victims of Nazism. / Here on November 26-27, 1941 / Jewish children of the Orsha Ghetto were brutally tortured.
In English
To the victims of Nazism.
Jewish children from the Ghetto of Orsha
Were brutally murdered here
on 26-27 November 1941.
In Hebrew
לזכר הילדים היהודיים
מגטו אורשה ה"ד
שנרצחו על ידי הנאצים
ב-26-27 בנובמבר 1941
ת.נ.צ.ב.ה
Translation: In memory of the Jewish children / from the Orsha Ghetto, may God avenge their blood / who were killed by the Nazis / on November 26-29 1941 / May their souls be bound in the bundle of life.
Commissioned by
The Simon Mark Lazarus Foundation, the Miles and Marilyn Kletter Family Foundation, and the Warren and Beverly Geisler Family Foundation.
The fascists entered Orsha on July 16, 1941 [Al'tman, 698]. When the occupation regime in the town had been firmly established, there was a flurry of anti-Jewish decrees. In September 1941, the Germans created a ghetto [jewishgen.org]. The Jews of Orsha were killed in several Aktions [Al'tman, 698-700].
The first monument was erected presumably in the 1950s near the Jewish cemetery, at the killing site and mass grave of 2,900 Jewish children from the Orsha Ghetto. They were killed on November 26-27, 1941, during the liquidation of the ghetto. Their parents were killed 150 meters from that place [izvezda.by]. On their mass grave, there are two monuments - a stele and a boulder. The stele was established in 1968, while the date of the boulder's erection is unknown.
In 2014, the old monument was replaced by the stel, which is under discussion. 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].
Shortly after the erection, the stele was vandalized [yechihamelech.livejournal.com]. In 2020, the monument's territory improvement took place [orshanka.by]. Today it is a place of commemorative ceremonies.
Botvinnik, Marat, "Pam'atniki Genotsida Evreev Belarusi" (Minsk: Belaruskaia navuka, 2000), pp.176-177.
For the image, see
Belarus Holocaust Memorial Project, https://www.belarusmemorials.com/memorials/vitsyebsk/orsha/..
"Holocaust in Belorussia," jewishgen.org, https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/belarus/bel178.html (accessed March 24, 2025)
Il'ya, Al'tman (ed.), Kholokost na territorii SSSR (Moskva: ROSSPEN, 2011), pp.698-700.
"Pam'atnik det'am-zhertvam natsistov v Belarusii podvergs'a napadeniy vandalov," yechihamelech.livejournal.com, https://yechihamelech.livejournal.com/314508.html (accessed March 24, 2025)
"V Orshe blagoystroiat pam'atnik zhertvam fashizma," orshanka.by, https://www.orshanka.by/?p=56794 (accessed March 24, 2025)