The workers spent a few day in the prison,after which some of them were released and sent to work,while others were loaded onto trucks,taken outside of town,and shot.

The German authorities ordered that the entire Jewish population be registered by the Judenrat,a Jewish committee which had been specially created for this purpose.The order warned that any unregistered Jews would be denied apartments during resettlement.During the registration,the first name,surname,age,and address were taken down.

The Jewish committee was created in the following fashion:members of the Gestapo seized ten men on the streets,took them to government headquarters,and ordered then to carry out all instructions of the German authorities.The slightest violation was punishable by shooting.Ilya Mushkin,the former vice-director of the ministry of Commercial Trade,was appointed chairman of the committee.

By July 15,1941,the registration of the Jews was completed.From that date on Jews were ordered to wear yellow tags on their chests and backs beginning on that date.The tags had to be ten centimeters wide.Instructions were issued forbidden to greet non-Jewish friends.After that the German autjorities announced that a ghetto would be formed.

On top of all this,the Jews were required to pay an indemnity in gold,silver,Soviet currency,and certain bonds.

Crowds of Jews left the place where they had lived for so long,leaving behind their apartments,furniture and possession,and taking with them only the most essential items.There was no form of transportation,and they had to carry everything on their shoulders.1 1/2square meters(about 12 square feet)were allotted perperson,not including children.

The resettlement did not take place without harassment:a strictly defined area was set aside for the ghetto,but as soon as people moved into an apartment,a new order would be issued including certain streets and excluding others.

During the two weeks extending from July 15 till July 31,1941,Jews were tormented and shifted from place to place.By August 1,1941,the resettlement of the Jews had been completed.In instances of mixed marriages the children remained with the father.If the father was a Jew,the children left with him for the ghetto,and the mother remained in town,If the father was not a Jew,the children lived with him in town,and the mother had to leave for the ghetto.It is known that Professor Afonsky,a Russian married to a Jew,bought his wife’s release from the ghetto from the German commandant’s office.She was permitted to live with her husband and daughter in town(outside the ghetto) on condition thay she be sterilized.The operation was conducted by Professor Klumbov under German observation.This case was unique.Professor Afonsky had a large supply of gold coins the money he had received from selling his property,and he gave it all to the Germans as ransom.

The following streets were included in the ghetto: Khlebnaya, Nemigsky Lane, part of the Respublikanskaya Street,part of ostrovskaya Street,Yubileyny Square,part of Obuvnaya Street, Shornaya Street,Kollektivnaya Street, the Second Apansky Lane,Fruktovaya Street,Tekhnicheskaya Street,Tankovaya Street, Krymskaya Street ,and others.These street were isolated from the center of town and from commercial and industrial concerns.On the other hand,the cemetery was in cluded in the territory of the ghetto.

The ghetto was surrounded by five strands of barbed wire,and anyone who went beyond the wire was shot.Jews were forbidded under penalty of death to engage in trade or buy food.The Jews received a new companion in their lives:the firing squad.

The family of the laborer Cherno consisted of six persons—two adults and four small children.Cherno’s wife Anna could not endure the suffering of her hungry children and she went to the Russian area to ask her friends for help.On the way back,she was stopped by the police who confiscated everything she was carrying,took her to prison,and shot her.The same fate befell Rozalia Taubkin,who had crossed the wire to meet her Russian relatives.

As soon as the ghetto was surrounded with barbed wire,robberies and violence began to occur.At all hours of the day and night Germans drove or walked up to the ghetto and entered Jewish apartments,where they felt themselves to be unlimited masters;they robbed and took everything from the apartments that caught their eye.The robberies were accompanied by beatings,harassments, and--not infrequently—murder.

The Germans attacked Jewish houses at night and killed their inhabitants.The murders were committed in cruel fashion—by poking out eyes,cutting out tongues,severing ears,crushing skulls, and so forth.

The area of shevchenko Streer,Zelenaya Street,Zaslavskaya Street, Sanitarnaya Street,Shornaya Street,and Kollektornaya Street was particularly afflicted.The Jews defended their apartments by making double doors and iron latches.When the bandits knocked at their house,they refused to open the door.They arranged watches and self-defense groups,but even so they had to surrender to the strength of arms.Doors and windowa were smashed,and the bandits burst into the apartments.The Germans broke into the apartment of Dr.Esfir Margolin,beat everyone,and killed ywo persons.Dr.Margolin was shot four times,and her wounds were quite serious.The Kaplan family,who lived on Zaslavsky Lane,was tortured for a long time:the Germans poked out the eyes of the father,cut off the ears of the daughter,crushed the skulls of the other members of the family,and finally shot everyone…

A camp was set up on Shirokaya Street. Russian prisoners of war and Jews were forced to do heavy,exhausting work there.The Jews were made to carry gravel and sand from one area to another and then back to the original site.Digging was done without shovels.Workers were given 300 grams(2/3 of a pound)of bread once a day and a murky water called soup.

Gorodetsky,a former member of the White Army,a thief,rapist,and murderer, was simultaneously appointed commandant and master of the camp.

Professor Siterman,a doctor of medicine,was one of the most respected scientists of the Byeiorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.He had not managed to evacuate from Minsk,and Gorodetsky and the Gestapo began to torment him as soon as they learned of his whereabouts.Gorodetsky burst into his apartment,took everything that caught his eye,and beat the old man.Gestapo men came to his apartment,took him away,and forced him to perform heavy filthy work—cleaning cesspools and toilets.In October of 1941 Professor Siterman was placed in a toiled and photographed with a shovel in his hands.Once he was forced to crawl on all fours in the middle of the ghetto square;he was photographed with a soccer ball on his back.A few days latter a car came for him and took him away.His relatives were told it was for a “consultation.” He was not seen again.

All men in the ghetto were registered in the labor office. Subsequently this office was given the title of“labor exchange.”From there people were sent to do heavy work in the military units and in the camp on Shirokaya Street.

On August 14 a rumor spread through the ghetto:“They’re picking up the men.”The ghetto had been surrounded,and many men were loaded on trucks and taken away.The Gestapo explained that these people were being taken to work at military sites.That which the Gestapo called “work” is called death in all other languages.

At 5:00A.M.on Aygust 26,1941,a number of cars sped up to the ghetto;in five minutes they had surrounded it.They had brought Gestapo agents who burst into Jewish apartments shouting: “Manner!”(men!).All the men were driven out onto Yubileiny Square,beaten,tormented,and then taken away.

On August 31,1941,this dragnet was again cast out.Again the ghetto was surrounded,but on this occasion some women were arrested in addition to the men.At the same time the Jewish apartments were looted.

The people arrested on August 14,26,and 31 were taken to prisons and shou (all in all, about 5,000).

The Germans tried to sow panic among the Jews, to shackle their thoughts and actions,to inspire in them the belief that all was lost and that there was no escape.

In August 1941, however,organized resistance forces began to emerge within the ghetto.The communists who had remained in Minsk agreed to call a party meeting for the end of August.The house at 54 Ostrovsky Street served as the meeting place.Among the communists were Weingaus, a member of the Soviet of the Soviet of People’s commissars of the Byelorussian Republic,Shnitman, Khaimovich,and Feldman—all employees of the Bialystok Textile Factory—and Smolyar﹡(H.Smolyar worked in the Bialystok Division of the Byelorussian Writers’Union until June,1941.He now lives in Israel,where he is a researcher and writer.See noteon page X.)—an employee of the Union of Soviet Writers.

At the meeting it was decided to create an underground party organization which would pursue the following goals:

4.Establish contact with the partisans.

5.Set up a radio receiver.

  The first steps of the party organization were successful.The Germans had ordered that all valuables,gold,and silver be turned im,but the underground party organization resolved that these valuables should be sent to the partisans.

The underground party group set about systematically produccing leaflets.The leaflets were read with extreme attention and handed on.In meeting,people no longer greeted each other,but asked: "Any news today?" It seemed that the only world on everyone's lips was Nayes("News").The Jewish underground put out leaflets summarizing the latest Moscow radio broadcasts which had been received on the secret receiver.Weingaus was appointed editor,and the leaflets were copied and passed from house to house。

In September,1941,one of the leaders of the party group in the ghetto,Kirkoeshto,was killed.His place was taken by Misha Gebelev,an instructor from the Kaganovich Regional Committee in Minsk.It was Gebelev's task to establish contact with the communists of the Russian sector.The question was raised as to calling a joint party conference.

  The Hitlerites attempted to sow national enmity,and Gebelev,a Jew,went to the Russian sector at the risk of his own life to save Russian communists and hide his comrades in the apartment he located.Some of them he hid in secret apartment in the ghetto. Reserve apartments were established within the Russian sector near the ghetto;these were used both by communists from the Russian sector and from the ghetto.

 In September 1941,contact was established with the partisan unit of Captain Bystrov.(This unit operated in the east.)Guides arrived,and the first group of people from the ghetto--30 persons--was sent to join the partisans.These were,for the most part,communists and people with a military background:Shnitman,Khaimovich,Gordon,Lenya Okun,and others.

  The underground party organization resolved to organize systematic assistance in the form of warm clothing,soap,salt,ect.for the partisan units.

  The underground group viewed the Jewish Committee(the Judenrat)as part and parcel of the policies of the invaders.Nevertheless,contact was established with those elements within the Judenrat which were prepared to render assistance to the partisan movement and in the evacuation of Jewish inits to the partisans.First of all,contact was established with Mushkin,chairman of the Judenrat.Later Serebryansky and Rudintser,chairman of the production sector,were asked to help in rendering aid to the partisan movement.Both these men turned over to the leaders of the party group items intended for the partisan group: footwear, leather,underwear,warm clothing,typewriters,office supplies, soap,medicine,and sometimes even food and salt.

 The Fascist thugs roamed around the ghetto harassing every Jewish apartment.In spite of this,however,Jewish women--even the older ones--helped  thepartisans by sewing underwear and camouflage suits,and by knitting socks.The workshops of the ghetto were run by Goldin and functioned primarily to support the partisans.

  At that time the communists of the ghetto and the communists of the Russian sector decided to call a joint meeting to create a united party organization inMinsk.

  In September 1941,a preliminary meeting took place,but the general conference could not be called at that time.

  The twenty-fourth anniversary of the October Revolution was approaching.Beginning in November,the rumor spread through the ghetto that there would be a pogrom in the Minsk ghetto on the anniversary of the October Revolution.Gorodetsky came to the ghetto and selected the skilled workers to be sent together with their families to the camp on Shirokaya Street during the pogrom.Certain employees of the Judenral were also sent there.The following is a brief description of this camp;it was provided by Comrade Grechanik: 

 "No one was allowed to leave the camp on Shirokaya Street to go home.The camp contained prisoners of war.The Germans sent mainly Russians,Byelorussians ,and Poles there who had violated some rule of the German authorities.Everyone was ordered to sew red patches onto their clothese.In the same camp the Germans appointed a Western Ukrainian as head of the camp.He beat everyone indiscriminately--Jews and Russians...Many were ill, and new persons were constantly being brought in.In the camp on Shirokaya Street people were used up quickly."

  On that anxious night the Jews did not sleep,they were waiting for morning.As soon as it begam to get light,large covered trucks drove into the ghetto.The Gestapo agents were armed with whips,revolves,and light machine guns.On November 7,1941,the Germans carried out a messacre--and not just of Jews.Gallows were thrown up all over Minsk--on the street,in the parks,in the bazaars,and on the outskirts of town.On that day approximately 100 persons were hanged in various part from town.From their necks dangled piywood signs with words "partisan,""For collaborating with the partisans,""communist,"etc.Naturally the most terrible blow was aimed at the ghetto.

 The people were ordered to put on their best clothing and to dress their children as if for a ho;oday.Even small babies had to be taken.All the people were lined up in columns of four and taken under guard to Novokrasnaya Street.A truck was drawn up next to the park and used as a platform from which to photograph one of the columns.The machine gun began to bark,and the column was massacred. Trucks drove up to Novomyasnitskaya Street and pick up people.THe workers taken from the ghetto had learned that morning that a pogrom had began.At noon the workers entreated for and received passes for their families and ran to the ghetto.Very many of them found no one at home.It was apparent that they had been taken straight from their beds.The workers rushed to the trucks onto which people were being loaded.Some of them did not find their families and asked if they could go with these trucks in the hope that they would find them.

    An officer replied that those who had been taken were no longer alive.He said:"You can go if you like,but I don't know if you will return."Many workers saved women,girls,children,acquaintances,and strangers by passing them off as members of their own families.

The trucks went back and forth all day.About twelve or thirteen thousands Jews were taken to Tuchinki that day and kept there two days.The groans and crying of thirsty children crowded upon each other carried for long distances. On the third day the machine guns were used.Thousands of bodies were laid out in trenches which had been prepared in advance.Of thousands who were taken to the execution site two or three returned.

  A ten-year-old boy returned to the ghetto.He said:"At 7:00 P.M.very many women and childrenwere brought in trucks to the barracks.They were kept there  for three days.They were not given anything to eat or drink.Some of them,the small babies and the old folks,died in those three days.When they took us from there,I was with my mother's sister.There were no other trucks behind us,and my aunt picked up the tarpaulin and said:'Jump,sweetie,maybe you\ll survie.' I jumped as the truck drove down the road.Ilay on the ground for a while,and then I came here."

The next story is that of a woman who had been led out into a field to be shot.She came to the ghetto,her body swollen and bloody.She was naked and wounded in the arm.She had seen long wide trenches,alongside which Germans and policeman were forcing people to undress.As soon as the small children got down from the trucks,the policemen took them from their parents and broke their spinal columns against their knees.Small babies were thrown in the air and shot at or caught on bayonets and then flung in the trenches.Naked people were lined up next to the pit and shot with machine guns.Those who refused to undress were murdered in their clothing.If their clothing was of good quality,they were undressed after being killed.One woman was forced to undress and stand beside apit.They wounded her in the arm;she fell and was covered up by bodies.That night,when things quieted down,she crawled from the pit and came to the ghatto.

The following street were encompassed by the pogrom: Ostrovsky Street,Respublikanskaya Street,Shevchenko Street,NemigStreet, Khlebnnaya Street,and others.

By the evening of November 7,the pogrom began to die down.

After this pogrom the Germans began to creat “specialists’sectors”;they called all the skilled craftsmen “specialists.”

Unskilled laborers were not issued cards.All non-specialists were ordered to move immediately to a different sector.A new resettlement began ,and everyone knew what that meant.The women began to look for specialists,and the young girls began to marry old men.Many of those who were denied “specialists’cards”and were thus condemned to die lost their minds.

When the first resettlement of non-specialists was concluded,the Germans began to issue address tablets to be afficed to the doors.These tablets were attached to the outside door and indicated who lived in the apartment, who worked, and who was whose dependent. when all this was accomplished, the Germans ordered that each resident “specialist” go to the Judenrat for the number of his house and sew it on his chest, under a yellow badge, and also on his back. This number was written on while canvas and stamped.