Uruchye Forest Related Communities
Minsk Related Murder Sites
# Follow us
Languages
English
ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
RESEARCH & COLLECTIONS
COMMEMORATION
EDUCATION & E-LEARNING
MUSEUMS & EXHIBITIONS
RIGHTEOUS
Murder story of Minsk Jews in the Uruchye Forest
Murder Site
Uruchye Forest
Belorussia (USSR)
In early December 1941, approximately 2,000 Jews of all ages and both sexes were rounded up by members of Sonderkommando 1b of Einsatzgruppe A and Latvian auxiliary policemen, loaded onto trucks, and driven 9 km eastward along the Minsk-Moscow highway, to the Uruchye area (which is now part of Minsk). The victims were taken to a forest tract between the roads leading to Moscow and Rakov. Here, in the area of the former Soviet military barracks near the town of Kopishche and the Karniz Boloto farmstead, the victims were shot over pits dug in advance. According to Soviet reports, the shootings of "peaceful civilians," mostly Jews, continued at this site throughout 1941-1943.
Related Resources
German Reports / Romanian Reports
ChGK Soviet Reports
From the judicial proceedings against Hans-Hermann Remmers and Carl Zenner, Koblenz, 1960:
From the testimony of Franz Karl Hess, a former member of the task force of Sonderkommando 1b of Einsatzgruppe A:
…On December 10 or 11, 1941, 2,000 Soviet Jewish civilians, including children, women, and elderly people, were taken from the Minsk Ghetto and shot. The Jews were shot… 30 km from Minsk, along the Minsk-Moscow highway….
ZENTRALE STELLE, LUDWIGSBURG B 162/21067 (כרך 1); B 162/21068 (כרך 2); B 162/21069 (כרך 3); B 162/21070 (כרך 4); B 162/21071 (כרך 5); B 162/21072 (כרך 6); B 162/21073 (כרכים 7-9); B 162/21078 (כרך 10); B 162/21079 (כרך 11) copy YVA TR.10 / 3715
Uruchye Forest
forest
Murder Site
Belorussia (USSR)
53.902;27.559
Photos
A sketch of the killing site at the Uruchye Forest, drawn after the war
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-87-123 copy YVA M.33 / JM/20010