Mozyr

Jewish settlement in Mozyr is known to have taken place from the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century, the Jews of the town were hit hard during the Chmelnitsky rebellion. During the Russian Civil and Soviet-Polish Wars (1918-1921), the Jews of Mozyr suffered a number of pogroms. In one such pogrom, on November 10, 1920, 44 Jews were killed, more than 250 women raped, and Jewish property looted. During the Soviet period, a Yiddish school and kindergarten operated in Mozyr. In 1925, a Jewish agricultural cooperative, "Krasnyi Pakhar" (The Red Ploughman), was established near town. In 1939, the Jewish population of Mozyr numbered 6,703, 36 percent of the total population. A small number of Jews managed to leave the town before the Germans arrived. German forces occupied Mozyr on August 22, 1941, and established a Jewish ghetto on Romashev Rov Street. Jews were forbidden to leave, while non-Jews were not allowed to approach the ghetto, which was surrounded with barbed wire. Jews brought from elsewhere in the vicinity were also imprisoned in the ghetto. According to different sources, up to 4,500 Jews were murdered by the Germans in Mozyr, the majority of them during September 1941- winter of 1942. The Red Army liberated Mozyr on January 14, 1944. The Germans occupied Mozyr on August 22, 1941, and promptly began to murder groups of Jewish residents. On September 10, some 200 Jews were murdered a short distance from town. In autumn or December 1941, the Jews were concentrated in a ghetto in the Romashov Rov quarter. They were forbidden to leave, while non-Jews were not allowed to approach the ghetto, which was surrounded by barbed wire. Jews brought from elsewhere in the vicinity were also imprisoned in the ghetto.On January 6, 1942, all the ghetto inhabitants were led to the prison and stripped of their belongings. The following day, they were murdered outside the village of Bobry. Most were shot dead; some were drowned in the Pripyat River. Tittze, the German police commander in Mozyr, and Rosenthal, commander of the local SD detail, directed the operation. Sources put the number of victims at either 1,150 or 1,500.