Novembre Massacre

Since the Minsk ghetto was already overcrowded with Jews from the city and the surrounding area, "space was made" for the newly arriving "Reichjuden" by killing the local Jews in a first "large-scale action", which took place on 6 – 11 November and additionally on 20 November 1941. SS-Sturmbannführer Hans-Hermann Remmers was charged with the first massacre of the Minsk Jews. At that time, the Security Police and SD in Minsk were weakly manned, so he had to resort to Ukrainian and Belorussian Schutzmannschaften (security teams). In the early morning of 7 November 1941, the German police and the aforementioned auxiliary teams sealed off approximately 15 blocks of houses and forced those inside onto the street. The people lined up in columns were then checked for their personal details. Workers and their families were first separated from the others and gathered in the yard of the nearby bread factory.

The Hamburg survivor Heinz Rosenberg, who got from Hamburg to Minsk on a very early transport, remembers the horrific scenes upon arrival in the ghetto, from which the previous residents had apparently just been expelled:

 “[...] There was blood everywhere, and the food was still on the stoves and tables. [...] Finally, however, the 'cleaning work' had to begin. The dead were carried to some place in the courtyard, the inventory was simply thrown out of the windows and later burned in the yard. [...]”

The remaining Jews were transported out of the ghetto either on foot in a column of 200 to 250 people or by lorry and taken to the Tučynka barracks north of Minsk. Days before, pits had already been dug there for the upcoming executions. Remmer's interrogation after the war reveals the details of the executions:

I saw how the persons in the trucks had to leave the vehicle and move into the line through a chain of guards. The chain of guards led in the direction of the pit. [...] At the end of the chain of guards, the Jews, whether male or female, had to undress. [...] As I could see, the undressing was done rather rudely. The guards helped the Jews undress in a brutal way. [...] Today I can no longer say whether German police were present at the execution site; in any case, Ukrainians were there. They certainly formed the firing squad. [...] From the place where the Jews had to take off their clothes, they were then herded to the pit. There the Jews lined up at the edge of the pit with their faces to the pit and their backs to the shooter. Probably 10 Jews at a time lined up in front of the pit in this way. The Jews were then shot by the firing squad either with rifles or submachine guns in single fire, always in a volley.” [1]

According to Remmer, 6,624 Jews were killed in this "action" on 6-11 November 1941, and between 5,000 and 7,000 people in another "action" on 20 November. The number of people shot after these two "actions" is estimated at 12,000 - 14,000 people.

A total of about 7,000 Jewish women, children and men from the "Old Reich", the "Ostmark" and the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" were deported to Minsk with the help of train wagons. Only about 50 people survived the various massacres, hardships, famines, diseases and other cruelties. It could be established that the survivors were mostly men. Women and children were more likely to be affected by the killings and had less chance of survival, as the men were increasingly used by the National Socialists for forced labour.

Between December 1941 and spring 1942 there were no further "major actions". There were possibly two reasons for this: due to the worsening of the war situation, the train connections could not be used for "Jew transports" during this period, since important war material and troops had to be transported to the East by rail.

On the other hand, the winter of 1941/42 was particularly hard and the ground around Minsk was frozen to a depth of two metres. It was therefore impossible to dig the pits needed to bury the dead. SS-Obersturmführer Kurt Burkhardt from the Minsk KdS (commander of the security police) also wrote in a report to the RSHA:

"Liquidation operations on a larger scale cannot [...] be carried out in the current weather conditions, since the deep-frozen ground does not allow the digging of the mass graves"[2]

However, the dying and killing continued even without "large-scale actions". Shootings, physical and psychological humiliation and murder were the order of the day. Cold, hunger and disease also claimed numerous victims. Some of them were burned or piled up in barns, as the frozen ground did not allow for burials; they were not buried until spring.

Sources:

[1] Rentrop, Petra: Tatorte der “Endlösung”. Das Ghetto Minsk und die Vernichtungsstätte Maly Trostinez. Berlin: Metropol. 2011. p. 141

[2] Rentrop, Petra: Tatorte der “Endlösung”. Das Ghetto Minsk und die Vernichtungsstätte Maly Trostinez. Berlin: Metropol. 2011. p. 188.