Who was killing residents of Logoisk District during Great Patriotic War and burning their houses to the ground?

From the first days of the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis began to implement their plan to exterminate the civilian population in the occupied territories. With German pedantry, a policy of genocide was developed. A few months before June 1941, Germany created special units, whose task was, in the language of German documents, "pacification of the rear" that is, the killing communists and Jews. These were Einsatzgruppen. They were also called the death squads.

Group B operated in the territory of Belarus, it moved behind the Group Center Army and cleansed the occupied territory from the people who resisted the occupation regime. They were actively assisted by the Polizei, who knew the local population very well and for a few marks turned their acquaintances, neighbors and even relatives.

Several dozens of criminal cases were opened against the police officers of the Logoisk District. The cases are kept in the central archives of the KGB. 

Without Statute of Limitations

Central Archives of the State Security Committee contain criminal cases, which are the state secrets of Belarus. 

Yuri Zverev, historian of special services, candidate of historical sciences:

'All persons who were mobilized in the liberated territories underwent a certain verification - where they were, what they were doing. They were checked against other testimonies. Thus this tangle of crimes committed by former police officers or those who collaborated with the occupation administration was solved."

There are millions of documents on several dozens of accused persons, whose list of crimes included the annihilation of civilians. In August 1941 the Nazis carried out a large-scale action of elimination of the Jewish population of Logoisk and Gaina. Police officers from all the communes participated as well.

The Jews from Gaina were told that they were being relocated to Logoisk, and the Logoisk Jews were told that they were being relocated to Gaina. Therefore, all they had to take with them was money and jewelry. The two columns walked about a kilometer from the town.

The tract Ivanovschina is now a landscaped place of memory. On the top of the hill there are memorials. Jews from Gaina and Logoysk met at the foot of the mountain. They were taken up in batches. The hill of Ivanovska became a kind of Golgotha - the last meters of life.

A few days before the tragedy the Jewish men were sent to digging trenches. But they dug their own grave for themselves, their children and parents. After all, both infants and the elderly were sentenced to death.

They were taken up to the top of the hill in batches of 10 or 15 people. They killed them and brought the next ones up. The people, sitting below, heard the shots and understood that the same fate awaited them.

Alexander Pavliukovich, local historian:

"As I was told by many witnesses in Logoisk, the ground was moving, because there were still people alive, not all were killed at once."

Only for one day, August 30, 194, in Ivanovshchina, according to the emergency state commission, 1200 people were killed. The Polizei, who participated in the murder of their fellow countrymen, then occupied their homes and used their property. They continued to serve the Third Reich faithfully and participated in punitive actions. The list of their crimes in the criminal file took hundreds of sheets. Many were sentenced to capital punishment.