Former market place in Yurovichi, collection point of the Jews before the shooting at the Pripyat River in Yurovichi.. Photographer: Vadim Akopyan, 2007.
Vadim Akopyan, Minsk, Copy YVA 15742434
Pripyat River in Yurovichi Related Communities
# Follow us
Languages
English
ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
RESEARCH & COLLECTIONS
COMMEMORATION
EDUCATION & E-LEARNING
MUSEUMS & EXHIBITIONS
RIGHTEOUS
Murder Story of Yurovichi Jews on the Bank of the Pripyat River in Yurovichi
Murder Site
Pripyat River in Yurovichi
Belorussia (USSR)
On November 18, 1941, 30 Germans and 20 Belarusian policemen arrived in Yurovichi. One day later between 200 and 250 Jews of all ages were taken to the market square of Yurovichi. They were forced to march to the outskirts of the village and were shot dead on the bank of the Pripyat River (between the pier and Lake Grebnoye) by the 1st SS-Infantry Brigade, German gendarmerie members from Yurovichi, and local Belarusian policemen. The bodies of the victims were thrown into the river or were left for the wild animals. Only after almost a week were the remains buried in four common graves by Soviet Communist activists, who were forced to do so by the Germans.
Related Resources
Written Accounts
ChGK Soviet Reports
From the testimony of B. S. Katsen, a former partisan commissar:
… The brutal mass murder of the Jewish population in Yurovichi started just before the beginning of 1942. 50 German executioners and policemen came from Kalinkovichi by truck.… More than 150 Jewish families, locals and refugees from other counties, lived in Yurovichi…. Already on the first day the Hitlerites forced about 400-500 Jews into a single column and herded them along Mozyrskaya Street to the river. They [Jews] were shot dead with a machine-gun between the pier and Lake Grebnoye. They [Jews] were finished off with rifle-fire and the bodies were thrown into the Pripyat. One of the police monsters himself killed his Jewish wife and daughter. Several people attempted to escape during the massacre and some of them succeeded.… The rest of the Jews, who were not part of that terrible column, were caught and shot on the spot. Many Jewish families were buried in unknown graves.…
V. I. Pilipets, Memory: Kalinkovichi County, Minsk, 1999, p. 203 (Belarusian).
Pripyat River in Yurovichi
river
Murder Site
Belorussia (USSR)
51.949;29.552
Photos
Former market place in Yurovichi, collection point of the Jews before the shooting at the Pripyat River in Yurovichi.. Photographer: Vadim Akopyan, 2007.
Vadim Akopyan, Minsk, Copy YVA 15742434