History of the Jews in Belarus

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The history of the Jews in Belarus is long.

1 Pale of Settlement
2 World War II
- 2.1 See also
- 2.2 External links

[edit] Pale of Settlement

Main article: Pale of Settlement

The Pale of Settlement was a western border region of Imperial Russia in which permanent residence of Jews was allowed. Though comprising only 20% of the territory of European Russia, the Pale corresponded to historical borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and included much of present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, and parts of western Russia.

Gesya Gelfman (Hesia Helfman) was a Russian revolutionary born in Mazyr, a town in the Homiel Province of Belarus.

[edit] World War II

Main article: World War II

Atrocities against the Jewish population in the conquered areas began almost immediately, with the dispatch of Einsatzgruppen (task groups) to round up Jews and shoot them. Local anti-semites were encouraged to carry out their own pogroms. By the end of 1941 there were more than 50,000 troops devoted to rounding up and killing Jews. The gradual industrialization of killing led to adoption of the Final Solution and the establishment of the Operation Reinhard extermination camps: the machinery of the Holocaust. In three years of occupation, between one and two million Soviet Jews were killed. Other ethnic groups were targeted for extermination, including the Roma and Sinti; see Porajmos.