Maly Trascjanec between 1941 and 1944

Panoramic photos of the former camp site

In the years 1942 to 1944, the Soviet "Karl Marx collective farm" was transformed from a farm with agriculture and cattle breeding into the "SS-Gut-Trascjanec" camp.

According to documents of the Koblenz Regional Court, the German occupiers took over the 250-hectare collective farm in April 1942. The decisive factor for the selection was probably the disused railway tracks that ran not far from the camp grounds and thus offered a good logistical connection to the camp.¹ The Sonderkommando 1b had already been using the adjacent Blahaǔščyna forest as an execution site since autumn 1941.² Immediately after the takeover of the collective farm, arrangements were made to set up a detention camp. Barbed wire was erected and various guard posts were set up. Due to the many escape attempts and partisan actions, the number of guards was increased to 250.³ From May 1942 onwards, the extermination became dynamically radical, because Blahaǔščyna became the central execution site for the commanders of the Minsk Security Police (KdS) and thus the last stop for tens of thousands of Jewish men, women, children and prisoners of war.⁴

Responsible for content: Rukia Soubbotina

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_{¹ Cf. Rentrop, Tatorte der "Endlösung", p. 197.}

_{² Cf. Angrick, Aktion 1005, p. 157.}

_{³ Cf. Hoffmann, "Das kann man nicht erzählen", p. 172.}

_{⁴ Cf. Angrick, Aktion 1005, p. 158.}