Genocide of Belarusian people - Tragedy of Bronnaya Gora

Belarus is one of the few countries in the world that at the state level keeps the memory of millions of people, who became the victims of Nazi crimes. The law "On the genocide of the Belarusian people" came into force. Public denial of this fact may now entail criminal liability.

Real death factories for the extermination of people operated in the territory of our country during the World War II. We lost every third inhabitant. People were gassed, burned alive, blood was taken from children for the treatment of Wehrmacht soldiers. 

It is interesting that while working out the plan "Barbarossa" the leadership of the Third Reich prescribed the methods of liquidation of the population in the occupied territories. Jews were singled out as a separate item. They were relocated to specially created places - ghettos. In Belarus, during the occupation about 200 ghettos were set up. January 27 is the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Holocaust. 

Out of six million Jews murdered during the World War II, 800,000 were killed in Belarus. Almost 55 thousand people were eliminated in Bronnaya Gora tract near Bereza. Bereza was occupied on June 23, 1941. Most of its population were Jews. According to pre-war documents their number was up to 80%. It was about four thousand people. A new order was established in the town. On June 26, the occupiers burned the synagogue. 

Galina Kravchuk, senior researcher at Berezova Museum of History and Regional Studies:

“One of the first orders was to surrender all the gold and all the jewels. The second order was to surrender all jewels and all valuables.  All residents had to work. The Third Reich needed infrastructure, transportation, food. People repaired roads and bridges and harvested wood. It was obligatory for Jews to wear yellow stripes.” 

In July 1941, a ghetto was created in Bereza. A little later it was divided into two parts. Part A, where the able-bodied population was taken, and part B, with the elderly, women and children. In addition, the bodies of self-government were established in the ghetto. Every day, the prisoners were asked to contribute their valuables and jewelry. Thus, the Jews were practically buying their right to live every day.

In the fall of 1941, the Nazis exterminated the families of Communists, Red Army soldiers, and part of the Jewish population near the walls of the ancient monastery. 

Kuzma Kozak, associate professor at the History Faculty of the Belarusian State University:

“On January 20, 1942, a decision will be made at the Wannsee Conference on the Final Solution of the Jewish question. There were practically no chances for the Jews. Thus, the total annihilation began. Himmler was put in charge of carrying out the plan for the final annihilation of the Jewish people. Belarus topped the list of countries. In summer, Wilhelm Kube reported to Hinrich Lohse, the Reich Commissar for the Ostland, that the Jews in the Minsk Region were completely eliminated. In a few weeks, 55 thousand people were exterminated in the republic, many of them in Bronnaya Gora tract. Before being sent to the pit, little children were immediately taken away from their mothers.  They took them by their feet and struck them against a tree. They didn't waste ammunition on them and threw them right in the pit. It was very, very scary, the pit was filled with lime and special blue liquid. And for a long time, as witnesses told us, the ground moved.”

Bronnaya Gora ranks fourth in terms of the number of Jews shot in Belarus.  It was carefully guarded by the Nazis. It was surrounded by a high fence and barbed wire. Jews from Bereza Kartuska Prison, Yanov, Drogishin, Gorodets, Brest-Litovsk were taken there and killed. Almost all the Jews of the Brest ghetto lie in Bronnaya Gora.

The people who were brought to the tract had no chance of survival. No one came out of Bronnaya Gora alive. It was a death conveyor belt. Trains with people arrived one after another. Pits-graves dug by Soviet prisoners of war were already prepared. They were up to 50 meters long and four meters deep. The Jews were stripped naked, all their belongings were taken away. The final road, from the train car  to the grave,  was about 400 meters long.

These were calculated deaths. The economists of the Third Reich calculated the benefit of destroying a person. It had to be in surplus. The economic component was the number one task for Germany. 

Kuzma Kozak, associate professor at the History Faculty of the Belarusian State University:

 “At first they were put in the freight cars, then they were not fed. The third stage was that everything they had was taken away from them. It's not just valuables, but anything that's on a person, the last stage is what's in a person, for example, prosthetics. Prosthetics can still serve.”

Several truckloads of precious gems, metals, and valuables were taken out of Bronnay Gora. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis began to cover up their crimes. As elsewhere in Belarus, a special sonderkommando retrieved corpses in Bronnaya Gora and burnt the already dead people. 

About 55 thousand people were killed during summer-autumn of 1942 in Bronnaya Gora. That is the population of the pre-war Brest. They were buried on the area of almost 17 thousand square meters in eight pits-graves. The longest is 63 meters. This is the data of the Extraordinary State Commission, which worked in the tract in September 1944. A few Soviet banknotes, glasses, pins is everything that was left of people.