The Holocaust in Belarus

The Holocaust in Belarus in general terms refers to the Nazi crimes committed during World War II on the territory of Belarus against Jews. The borders of Belarus however, changed dramatically following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, which has been the source of confusion especially in the Soviet era as far as the scope of the Holocaust in Belarus is concerned.

When World War II began, with the September 1, 1939 attack on Poland by Nazi Germany, the sovereign Belarus of today did not exist. The Nazi-Soviet Pact signed in secrecy led to the parallel Soviet invasion of Poland from the east on September 17, 1939. The eastern half of prewar Poland was annexed by the USSR to the two republics of Soviet Belarus and Soviet Ukraine.

The entire territory of modern-day Belarus was occupied by Nazi Germany by the end of August 1941. American historian Lucy Dawidowicz, author of The War Against the Jews estimated that 66% of the Jewish people residing in Belarusian SSR died in the Holocaust, out of 375,000 Jews in White Russia prior to World War II according to Soviet data. By comparison, in the Baltics about 90% of Jews were killed in the same period.

Resulting from the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, the territory of Belarusian SSR was almost doubled in size through the annexation of Kresy. The act of aggression against the Second Polish Republic was followed by the mock elections conducted in the atmosphere of terror. Polish cities were renamed in Russian, and the new Oblasts created. Millions of Polish citizens were turned by force into the new Soviet subjects. Within two years, the Jewish population of Minsk, the capital of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, had swelled to 90,000 due to an influx of Polish Jews escaping German occupation.

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