In the first days following their occupation of Vitebsk, the Germans began to raid the Peskovatik neighborhood, a predominantly Jewish area of the city. Jews, both singly and in small groups, would be taken to the Staro-Ulanovskiy Jewish cemetery, due north of the Peskovatik neighborhood, and shot there. Following the establishment of the ghetto on the opposite bank of the Western Dvina River in late July 1941, some ghetto inmates were brought to the cemetery to be shot, probably by members of Sonderkommando 7a or Einsatzkommando 9 of Einsatzgruppe B.

Related Resources

Written Accounts

ChGK Soviet Reports

From "The Vitebsk Ghetto", an article by Mikhail Ryvkin and Arkadi Shulman

…[Jews were] shot in the area of the Jewish Staroulanovichi cemetery. From the testimony of V[iktoria] Orlova (September 27, 1944): "From the first days, the Fascists carried out anti-Jewish raids. In the course of three days, shootings took place at the Jewish cemetery in the vicinity of Peskovatik."

Vitsbichi, October 30, 1993 (Russian)

Staro Ulanovichskoye Kladbishche

cemetery

Murder Site

Belorussia (USSR)

55.193;30.194

Photos

The entrance to the Staro-Ulanovskiy Jewish Cemetery. Photographer: Alexander Litin, 2018.

YVA, Photo Collection, 14615677