Page 22 - TORCH #16 - August 2020

Beginning with this issue of Torch, we will feature a different Holocaust memorial located somewhere in Europe and tell the story behind it. In this issue, CUFI’s Alastair Kirk shares his experience of visiting ‘The Pit’ in the Belarusian
Icapital of Minsk.
In 1939, almost one third of the total population of Minsk was Jewish. According to the last census before the War, there were around
100,000 Jews living in the Belarusian capital and the figure initially rose by half again at the start of the War due
to Jews fleeing eastwards to escape the German advance. Sadly, by the end of the Holocaust, two out of every three Jews living in the country had been murdered by the Nazis.
When German forces seized Minsk in June 1941, thousands of Jewish men aged 15 to 45 who reported for registration as intelligentsia (a highly educated social class) were taken and immediately shot. Next month, the notorious Minsk Ghetto was created not far from the city centre and all Jews in the city had five days
to move there. Today, the area consisting of around 40 streets and crossroads in the north- western part of the city has very little sign of
its former purpose. The ghetto was like a slave labour camp. It was completely cut off from the outside world – a place of hunger, hardship and fear. It was common for thousands of inmates to not return from labour. Many were taken into forests and shot to make space in the ghetto for Jews transported from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. In one day alone in November 1941, 12,000 were seized, taken outside the city to pits and machine-gunned to death. Although the Minsk Ghetto was one of the largest ghettos in the Soviet Union at the time, little was known about its history.
You have to look very hard to retrace the steps of the Holocaust in Minsk, a city that was all but flattened by the Germans. But one very important and powerful landmark that
is a must visit on a trip to Minsk is the Yama Memorial, known in English as The Pit, which is located in the area of the former ghetto and honours all Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Belarus.
After patiently trying to navigate the GPS, we eventually arrived at the destination – a
20-minute walk from Minsk’s historic centre. All we found was a wide crossroads with busy traffic surrounded by tall apartment buildings. But on the corner, set back from the road, was a cluster of trees and grass. As we walked into the small woodland area it was like stepping from the present into the past. The hustle and bustle of fast-paced Minsk was placed on pause. Suddenly we were faced with a large open space with a circular basin in the earth with sloping banks and steps that led down to the bottom. It felt solemnly quiet.
Welcoming visitors before the steps is a menorah constructed of red stone and plaques written in Russian. Parallel to the steps is a bronze sculpture called The Last Way, added in 2000 by the Belarusian artist and Chairman of the Jewish communities of Belarus, Leonid Levin, and the sculptor Elsa Pollak from Israel. The sculpture took 8 years to create and was crafted entirely by hand. It depicts 27 of the 5,000 Jewish victims from the ghetto who were forced to descend into The Pit to their execution on 2 March, 1942.
On that horrific day, which coincided with the Jewish festival of Purim, after workers
had left the ghetto, the Nazis ordered that children from an orphanage be brought to
the administration building. Unaware of what awaited the children, their supervisors led them, dressed and washed, and carrying the youngest in their arms, toward the building. They were met by a German officer who greeted them with sweets before leading them
22
CUFI.ORG.UK