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.

Before World War II began, with the September 1, 1939 attack on Poland by Nazi Germany, sovereign Belarus of today did not exist yet. 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 in the atmosphere of terror. The cities were renamed in Russian, the new Oblasts created, and millions of Polish citizens turned by force into the new Soviet subjects. Meanwhile, the Holocaust perpetrated by the Third Reich in the territory of Soviet Belarus began twenty-one months later in 1941, during the German attack on the Soviet positions, in Operation Barbarossa.

The communist Soviet-era sources estimated that Belarus lost a quarter of its prewar population in World War II, including most of its intellectual elite. It is a myth believed to have been concocted by the local 1st Secretary Pyotr Masherov in a speech of 8 May 1965 according to western historians who point out to evidence of manipulation by the Extraordinary State Commission inflating the figure considerably by including victims who were not citizens of the republic. The official memorial narrative of Belarus allows only a "pro-Soviet version of the resistance to the German invaders." The Constitution of the Republic under Article 28 denies access to information about Belarusians who served with the Nazis.

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