Molchad Ghetto

Monument to 3,600 Jews from the village of Molchad, killed by German Nazis in 1942.

The Molchad Ghetto (in Russian: Гетто в Молчади) was a ghetto established by the Nazis in July 1941 in Molchad, Belarus, and operated until July 18, 1942. In total, 3,665 Jews were murdered in the ghetto.

History

Before World War II and the Holocaust, about 1,000 Jews lived in Molchad. The city was captured by the Germans in June 1941, and a ghetto was established there in July of that year.

In May 1942, the Jews were forced to dig pits, in which, on July 15, 1942, in groups of 100 to 120 people, the Jews in the ghetto were shot. Afterwards, the Germans announced that any Jew who had not been in the ghetto would be moved there and guaranteed work. Between July 15 and July 18, thousands more Jews, who arrived at the ghetto from the surrounding towns of Molchad, were murdered, in addition to 50 Belarusians and 5 or 15 prisoners of war.

Later that year, an additional 200 Jews who had worked in the ghetto were murdered, and after its closure, they worked in factories in the city.

Memory and Commemoration

In 1977, a monument was erected in Molchad in memory of the "Soviet citizens murdered by the Nazis." In the 2000s, on the new monument built in memory of the Jews murdered in the city, the words were inscribed in Belarusian, English, and Hebrew: "Here in 1942, 3,600 Jews—local residents—were cruelly slaughtered."