The investigation by ČGK

Trigger warning: This exhibition page deals explicitly with the murder of people and could be disturbing to visitors. 

On 14 July 1944, about two weeks after the Red Army liberated Minsk, the Extraordinary State Commission of the Soviet Union (ČGK) began its work in and around Maly Trascjanec. It found a place almost completely destroyed; with its investigation, the commission changed this site for the last time before it was initially forgotten as a place of extermination.

Members of the Extraordinary State Commission question a villager

The Extraordinary State Commission was moving close behind the Red Army, which was pushing the German troops further and further west. The task if the commission was to secure traces of the German occupation and to collect evidence of the mass murder of people.¹ The ČGK began the investigation at Maly Trascjanec on 14 July 1944 and proceeded in several stages: First, they examined the barn on the camp grounds, then the temporary crematorium near Šaškoǔka and finally the Blahaǔščyna forest clearing. The camp grounds themselves were hardly examined and were only briefly mentioned in the commission's report: according to this report, the camp grounds were surrounded by a triple barbed wire fence that was electrified.²

The investigation of the provisional crematorium at Šaškoǔka

At the burnt barn, the commission found the remains of burnt clothing and various everyday objects in addition to thousands of charred bodies.³

After examining the barn and the camp area, the ČGK began to inspect the provisional crematorium at Šaškoǔka. It had been filled up with sand by the German troops. In the immediate vicinity, the commission found a large amount of tar, projectile casings and the remains of incendiary grenades.⁴ They had apparently been used to accelerate the incineration of thousands of people.

Sketch of the forest clearing near Blahaǔščyna from July 1944

During the final investigation of the forest clearing near Blahaǔščyna, the ČGK excavated a total of five of the presumed 34 pits - here, too, they found traces of the mass murders despite the "Aktion 1005".⁵ Afterwards, the graves were filled in again. In the sketch of Blahaǔščyna made by the ČGK, the deforested area around the clearing can be seen - a consequence of the need for firewood during the cover-up operation "1005" and subsequently in the Šaškoǔka forest.

During its inspection, the ČGK stated that the people murdered at Maly Trascjanec were Soviet citizens; either the commission did not realise that Blahaǔščyna was a Holocaust site, or it ignored this dimension.⁶

With its investigation, the ČGK changed the topography of the Maly Trascjanec extermination complex. In particular, the uncovering of the crematorium at Šaškoǔka and the excavation of the mass graves at Blahaǔščyna deformed the site. Numerous photographs and maps document the transformation of the site for the purpose of securing evidence. The sketch by the ČGK at Blahaǔščyna still shapes our image of Maly Trascjanec and the mass murders: it has recently become the template for the construction of a memorial.