M.41.ZGAPin - Documentation from the Regional State Archive in Pinsk The Regional Archive of Pinsk was established in 1940. During the German occupation, the Archive's activity was halted during 1941-1944 and was renewed only in August 1944. The Archive changed its mission following the dissolution of the Pinsk region, and it became the Municipal State Archive of Pinsk in 1954. In September 1996, the Archive changed its definition again, and it became the Local State Archive of Pinsk. As of 30 June 2001 and following, the Archive has been known as the "Scientific-Methodological Institution of the Local State Archive in Pinsk". The Holocaust and the murder of the Jews in Pinsk, from 04 July 1941 until 23 December 1942 The city of Pinsk was occupied by the German Army on 04 July 1941 and, according to the Germans' plans, the city was designated to become Judenrein - "empty" of Jews, the first among the large cities in the German occupied territories of the Soviet Union. The SS Einsatzgruppen arrived to Pinsk on 09 July 1941 and started the anti-Jewish decrees and persecutions, including the murder of individual Jews. Himmler, the SS Reichsführer, published an order on 30 July 1941, worded: "Every [male] Jew in Pinsk is to be executed, and the Jewish women are to be pushed into the swamps". Bruno Magill, the commander of the Second SS Cavalry Brigade group, received an order on 02 August 1941, according to which the First Brigade and the Fourth Brigade under his command were ordered to start the murder of the Jews of Pinsk. It became clear on 04 August 1941, during the coordination of the activity with Werthof, the commander of the Kommando in Pinsk, that the swamps were not deep enough in order to drown people at that season of the year. In order to carry out Himmler's order as it was given, the need arose to have trucks in order to transport the Jews who were designated for murder and to transport the SS men to the murder site. The trucks, however, were not at their disposal. Meanwhile, it was agreed that on the following day, on 05 August 1941, to start the murder of all the men who were between the ages of 16-60, in accordance with the directives. On 05 August 1941, near the village of Poznichi [?], located four kilometers from Pinsk, the First SS Cavalry Brigade murdered 8,000 Jewish men and youths, on the pretext that the Jews were being taken to labor for three days. Men of the SS Cavalry Brigade raided the Jews' apartments on 07 August 1941, with help from the local militia, and deported additional Jewish men who were between the ages of 16-60 to the place of concentration near the village of Kozlyakovichi. Another 3,000 Jews were murdered at this place. A total of at least 11,000 Jewish men and youths were murdered. During the evening hours on 08 August 1941, a broadcast was received from the SS Cavalry Brigade headquarters, ordering them to leave Pinsk and to advance to the next destinations in accordance with the original plan. The broadcast extended the life of the remnants of the Jewish community of Pinsk, most of whom were women and children, for a least one year and several months. Approximately 20,000 Jews remained in the city of Pinsk, following the departure of the SS Cavalry Brigade men. For additional details regarding the experiences of the Jews of Pinsk during the interim period of the nine months from the murder of the 11,000 men until the establishment of the Pinsk Ghetto on 01 May 1942, see the book "Pinsk", Vol. II, by Nachum Boneh; "The Holocaust and the Uprising", Chapter 4: "The Authorities of Oppression and their Activities", pp. 331-333. Lists of Jews in the Pinsk Ghetto In the Pinsk Ghetto there were 240 houses located on 23 streets, which were divided among the 18,000-20,000 Jews, with a half-meter square of space for each person. At least ten people lived in each room in overcrowded conditions. People who were relatives made an effort to reside in the same room, in order to ease the terrible suffering. There is authentic and singular testimony regarding the varied population in the Pinsk Ghetto, thanks to the discovery of 550 pages with lists of the names of 18,287 Jews from the Pinsk Ghetto. Two women employees at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem found these lists in the City Archive of the Brest Region. It should be emphasized that the lists are similar to those that were found in only several of the ghettos in the occupied territories. The lists were prepared, in German, approximately two months before the liquidation of the Pinsk Ghetto, and they include the person's last name, first name, date of birth, address in the ghetto, profession and place of work. Following a very detailed sorting of the lists, the following terrible picture became clear: 11,00 men were murdered; 86 out of every 100 persons in the Pinsk Ghetto were women and children up to the age of 15 years, and only 14 men were age 15 years or older. It should be pointed out that the members of the Judenrat are listed, under the category of "place of work": representative (Ratman) on the Judenrat. "Ghetto worker" and improvement in the food In an additional sorting of the lists, 5,112 workers [laborers] were counted; they constituted 46% of those who were age 15 and older. There were 1,944 male workers (men) and 3,168 female workers (women) in 44 labor places. The places of labor are arranged according to their size and the number of workers in each place: supplies and services to the municipal population: 1,284 (including 364 housemaids who worked in housekeeping for non-Jews); Judenrat departments and services: 1,175; services for the Germans: 999; workers in factories and sawmills: 859; in workshops: 795. Almost one out of every four workers labored in a place where it was possible, or almost possible, to improve the food conditions of their family members: 420 labored in agriculture, 354 in housekeeping work, 330 in the distribution of the bread portions and allotted vegetables, and workers in hospitals, orphanages, and in the kitchen with cheap food goods. The Pinsk Ghetto was able to exist under these harsh conditions for six months, as an isolated island of Jewish population, in an area that was already "Judenrein" (empty/clean of Jews). During the month of August 1941, almost all of the Jews in the towns surrounding Pinsk were murdered. Murder of the Jews in the Pinsk Ghetto, and gravestones in commemoration of the Jews of Pinsk On 27 October 1942 Himmler, the SS Reichsführer, published an order which said, among other matters, "I order the liquidation and annihilation of the Pinsk Ghetto, despite the economic considerations". Two days later on Thursday 29 October 1942, the 18th of Cheshvan 5703, towards morning, special annihilation brigades surrounded the Pinsk Ghetto. Over the course of three days, during 29-31 October 1942, thousands of Pinsk Jews were lead, including the members of the Judenrat, to pits that had been prepared in advance near the village of Dobrovolye, located approximately five kilometers from the city of Pinsk. There, the Jews were shot and buried. In 1993, the Organization of Jews from Pinsk established a monument at the mass grave in memory of the murdered people. A ceremony was held, with 200 Jews who were originally from Pinsk attending, who came to the ceremony from Israel and from around the world. Also at the ceremony were representatives of the Embassy of Israel in Moscow, representatives of the army, representatives of institutions of the city of Pinsk, hundreds of people from the local population, and school children. Three additional memorial plaques were established in memory of the Jewish victims, near the villages of Posnitz (8,000 men) and Kozlyakovichi (3,000 men) and near the location of the Jewish cemetery in Karlin, where the last 123 Jews from the "Small Ghetto" were murdered, most of them shoemakers and tailors who carried out labor for private orders made by the Germans. They were murdered before Christmas Eve, on 23 December 1942. The memorial plaques are inscribed in Belorussian, Hebrew and Yiddish. Resistance attempts Resistance attempts, by groups of young people who concentrated incendiary materials in several corners in the Pinsk Ghetto, were foiled. The young people wanted to activate the incendiary materials at the start of the acts of murder, and thus to break through the siege's ring and to escape to the forests. However, the Judenrat institutions, who had secret knowledge of the preparations, calmed the young Jews and stopped their preparations. The Judenrat members believed the Germans' lies, that "the Pinsk Ghetto is a working ghetto on behalf of our war effort, and the ghetto will continue to exist". The fact that there were few men in the ghetto, and the fear that the Germans would carry out acts of revenge against the thousands of women and children in the ghetto, were another factor that halted the young people. In the end, the Germans liquidated the ghetto, without any resistance. Despite this, there were hundreds of Jews from Pinsk who participated in the defeat of the Nazi regime: in the ranks of the partisans, in the underground, and as fighters in the various armies, including in the French Foreign Legion. The section of the book that deals with the resistance in Pinsk is dedicated to these fighters; see: Volume II, pp. 361-386. Trial of the murderers Seven of the murderers of the Jews of Pinsk were brought to trial in a Court of Law in Germany. The trial was conducted over the course of four months. In preparation for the trial, testimonies were also collected from a group of survivors from the Pinsk Ghetto. At the end of the trial, the defendants were sentenced with light punishments. For additional details, see the book "Pinsk", Vol. A, Part II, pp. 494-495. Description of the collections This sub-record group contains two collections: collection of documentation regarding the refugees and the nationalization of Jewish property during 1939-1946, and a collection of records from a card file of residents and refugees who arrived to Pinsk during 1939-1941; Soviet documentation of the Local State Archive in Pinsk regarding refugees from Poland and the nationalization of Jewish-owned real estate during 1939-1946. Differentiation needs to be made between municipal nationalization and national nationalization. In municipal nationalization, the owners of the confiscated property, most of which was residential housing, had to include additional residents in their homes, who pay rent. In national nationalization, the property owners must distance themselves one-hundred kilometers from the city (in most cases, they were deported to the interior of the Soviet Union later on). Most of the documentation in the first collection relates to municipal nationalization. Throughout the list of homeowners whose property was nationalized by the Ispolnitelny Komitet - Ispolkom (Executive committee) are the names of many Jews. From the type of property that was nationalized, one can learn that there was a rather broad strata of well-to-do Jews who resided in large homes, built of stone (building considered to be expensive) in the center of the city of Pinsk. Many Jews appealed to the authorities and requested that they cancel the decision regarding the nationalization of their property. Most of the appeals were rejected, but there were quite a few cases in which the claim by those who appealed was found to be justified, and the nationalization of the property was cancelled. There were those who appealed and even turned to the City Prosecutor, who succeeded in resolving the arguments between the various authorities. Included in the collection is documentation regarding the nationalization of the homes of Jews in Pinsk, and requests to cancel the nationalization; lists of homeowners during 1939-1941; documentation regarding the evacuation of refugees from Poland, who received permission to return to their homeland during 1945-1946. The second collection has the card file of the registration of the Jewish residents and refugees from Pinsk during 1939-1941, arranged in alphabetical order.