The Holocaust in Chachersk

The Holocaust in Chachersk was the ghettoization and genocide of the Jews and Romani people mainly in the Belarusian shtetl of Chachersk, as well as in the greater Chachersk District located inside the Gomel Oblast during the Holocaust. Invading Soviet-controlled Belarus as a part of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany subjected Chachersk and neighboring shtetls to systematic extermination. Entire Jewish and Romani populations in the region were rounded up in Nazi-organized ghettos and later executed, in one of the earliest phases of the Final Solution.

Before becoming a part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1919, Chachersk was a part of the Pale of Settlement, the only section of the Russian Empire in which Jews could permanently live. Thus, Eastern Belarus had a large Jewish population, with the January 1939 Soviet census estimating the Jewish population of the region at 375,000 people. The 1939 census further estimated the Jewish population of the Gomel Oblast at 62,146 inhabitants, and the population of the shtetl of Chachersk at around 977 Jews.

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, incited by Adolf Hitler’s desire to expand the Third Reich by gaining lebensraum for the German people. Nazi ideology dictated that in order for the Aryan race to thrive and multiply in newly captured land, it must first be rid of “life unworthy of life”. Since Chachersk had a predominantly Jewish population, as well as a substantial concentration of Romani people, it would be a prime target for genocide. German troops invaded Eastern Belarus and the Gomel Oblast, but were staved off by fierce resistance from partisans and Red Army units, who briefly halted the German advance. However, they were ultimately unsuccessful in defeating the Nazis, as the last pockets of Soviet and partisan resistance were dispatched in August and September 1941, leaving the Jews of Gomel Oblast defenseless and subject to the whims of the Germans. Hearing word of the imminent advance of the Wehrmacht and of Nazi atrocities, the Jews of Chachersk organized a mass evacuation, which proved successful. The majority of the Jewish inhabitants were evacuated from the shtetl, and around 200 remained when the Germans occupied Chachersk and the surrounding area.

...
Wikipedia