Obj. ID: 58563  Holocaust Memorial II in the Jewish Cemetery in Rechytsa (Rechitsa), Belarus, 2008

"Rechitsa was occupied by German troops on August 23, 1941. The terrorization and murder of the Jews began immediately. Groups of Jews, as well as individuals, were abused and tortured on the streets of the town and, afterwards, murdered on the spot. In late November 1941 the Jews of Rechitsa were ordered to gather at the local cultural center. The Jews were then forced into a two-storey building inside the former prison, which was used as a kind of short-term ghetto. According to other sources, the ghetto was established on the premises of a factory. The Jews of Rechitsa were annihilated between early September and late December 1941 in a number of murder operations of different scales at various murder sites. Among the locations were: the Dniepr crossing, the local cemetery, military camps near Ozershchina village, the Bronnoye village area, the vicinity of the railroad, the nail factory, the wine distillery, the air field, and a dug-out close to the prison. According to some sources, the largest murder operation was carried out in late December, 1941, when more than 500 inmates of the Jewish ghetto were murdered" [Yad Vashem: Untold Stories].

"In 1946 three Jews of Rechitsa who had returned from the front initiated the reburial of the victims from one of the murder sites to the town's Jewish cemetery. On the second day of the exhumation [of the bodies] from the mass grave, local authorities arrived at the excavation site: they banned the reburial but promised to erect a memorial in the area. The remains of the Jewish victims that the initiative group had collected before the prohibition were reburied at the Jewish cemetery. Later in 1946, with financial support from local Jews, a brick memorial was erected at the cemetery. [...] In 1994, with the financial support of former Rechitsa residents, the old memorial was replaced by a new, marble one. The Russian inscription on the memorial said:

"Here are buried innocent people who were murdered by the Hitlerites on November 25, 1941. They were returned to the earth and to God by their relatives. Human blood must not be spilled in vain."

On the back of the memorial there is [there was] a Russian inscription that says [said]:

"3000! [victims] Why?"

The Hebrew inscription said:

"Memorial from the Rechitsa community, erected to [commemorate] the victims murdered by the Hitlerites. The sound of weeping and wailing can be heard over the mountains and will never be silent. It is their blood that is crying from the ground to God, who is jealous and avenging. Ha- Shem [Hebrew for God] will avenge His people's blood that was shed. May their souls be bound up in the bond of everlasting life."… [Yad Vashem: Untold Stories]

In 2008, another replacement occurred: a present-day memorial was erected "with funding from Vladimir Resin, who was born in Rechitsa" [Yad Vashem: Untold Stories].

Soon after the erection of a brick memorial, or, according to the other sources, in 1973, the first memorial to the five Jews whose names and murder sites were identified was erected nearby. Either in 1994 or in 2008, the monument was replaced by a stele.  

Another monument was erected in 1973 near the site of the former Rechytsa (Rechitsa) Ghetto.