Memorial close to Azaryčy, inaugurated in 1994
14.01.2005 | Search for Clues in Belarus
(German original) “In March 1944, the German Wehrmacht committed one of its greatest crimes of the Second World War by deporting around 50.000 civilians from the area around Azaryčy in Belarus and locking them up in camps where they were abused as human shields...
06.10.1945 | Indictment against Hermann Goering et al.
On October 6, 1945 Col. Smirnov, assistant prosecutor of the USSR, addresses the Nuremberg Tribunal. In his indictment against Nazi officials, he also mentions the deportations of Belarusian civilians to the Azaryčy concentration camps. “At the beginning of 1944...
04.04.1944 | Conclusion on the Murder of Soviet Citizens by German Occupants in the Concentration Camps in the Palessie Region
This document was prepared by Deputy Military Prosecutor of the 65th Army Major of Justice, Polev, and approved by Prosecutor of the 65th Army Colonel of Justice, Burakov. This document contains information about German measures to deport civilians to the Azaryčy...
02.04.1944 | Path to Azaryčy
According to Nadezhda Konstantinovna Zhuravleva, on Sunday, all the residents were loaded onto motor vehicles and brought to the Cialuša station, and in the evening they departed. In the morning, the people were in Rudabielka, then they walked three kilometers to a...
22.09.2006 | “A shattering childhood”
In front of a school class aged between seventeen and nineteen, survivors recounted the terrible events of March 1944, when they were brought to the Azaryčy camps with their families as children. The students listened spellbound as the survivors talked about the...
01.04.1944 | Description of Azaryčy
Reshetko Ivan Semenovich described Azaryčy as a forest-swamp terrain. It was not allowed to build leaf huts, and it was forbidden to make fires at night, axes were taken away. The camp was surrounded by a row of barbed wire, mined from the outside. They received no...
2022 | “Genocide of the Belarusian nation”
After the protest movements of 2020, a number of commemorative laws were passed by the Belarusian government, including the law “On the Genocide of the Belarusian People” (January 5, 2022). «Генеральной прокуратурой Республики Беларусь возбуждено и...
28.03.1944 | “Because children need less space”
To ensure that the deportations near Azaryčy could also be successfully applied to other localities, the Army High Command described measures in its final report regarding the preparation of such an operation, the registration, loading and transport of civilians as...
28.03.1944 | 9th Army Operation Map
This map is based on an original attachment to the 9th Army final report on the Azaryčy concentration camps. It documents the frontline, army sections and transport routes as well as detailling all transit and concentration camps near Azaryčy. Source:...
28.03.1944 | “Significant relief”
In its final report, the 9th Army headquarters gave a detailed account of the planning and execution of the Azaryčy deportations as a blueprint for similar operations in the future. They conclude that the deportation of more than 41.000 civilians and “several...
04.12.1945 | “Concentration camps with no accommodation”
On December 4, 1945 – surprisingly early after the World War II – Ernst Trip published an article in the Schwäbische Zeitung. He referred to the Azaryčy deportations and discussed the crimes of the German Army against the civilian population in Belarus. „Zu Beginn des...
30.04.1944 | “Typhus infection”
In April 1944, only weeks after the liberation of the Azaryčy camps, the Sovjet Newspaper Pravda published excerpts from a report filed by the “Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the German Fascist...
03.07.1997 | Disclosure of New Azaryčy Memorial
3D model of the Memorial in Azaryčy. Please click on the picture to view the model. After the liberation by the Red Army, evidence was collected in Azaryčy which was used for the Nuremberg trials. One perpetrator, General Richert, was convicted and executed in 1946,...
24.06.2021 | German Ambassador Visits Azaryčy Memorial
3D model of the Memorial in Azaryčy. Please click on the picture to view the model. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in the Republic of Belarus, Germany’s then-ambassador Manfred Huterer, accompanied by the military...
2009 | “One of the most serious crimes ever committed by the Wehrmacht against civilians”
In his 2009 study Die Herrschaft der Wehrmacht, Dieter Pohl devotes a chapter to the deporations in the Azaryčy region. He places the events in Azaryčy in the wider context of German occupation policy and the general crimes committed by the Wehrmacht in the Soviet...
21.09.2020 | “The culture of remembrance is bound by time and context”
In 2017, a Holocaust survivor living in Budapest and two joint plaintiffs filed a statement of claim with the Lüneburg Administrative Court. In it, they demanded that the monument erected in 1960 by right-wing elected officials in honor of the 110th Infantry Division...
20.03.2019 | Photo Exhibition
On March 20, 2019, a photo exhibition about the Azaryčy concentration camps was opened in the Belarusian Great Patriotic War Museum in Minsk. More than 60 unique pictures taken by military photojournalists on site in March 1944 formed the basis of the exhibition. The...
2007 | A Blanket Saved Her Life
The Berlin-Karlshorst Museum is located in the former officers’ mess in Berlin, where the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht was signed on May 8, 1945, marking the end of the Second World War in Europe. The museum is dedicated to the history of the...
Date Unknown | Addendum to the Digital Exhibition „Extermination Site Maly Trostenets. History and Remembrance“
The exhibition “Extermination Site Maly Trostenets. History and Remembrance” (Vernichtungsort Malyj Trostenez. Geschichte und Erinnerung) is the result of international collaboration by historians from Belarus, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic...
20.03.1944 | “Most inappropriate impositions”
In its final report of March 20, 1944, the SD Sonderkommando complained that there had been repeated attempts of interfering by uninvolved army officers during the execution of the marches to the final camps, which had hindered the successfull realization of the...
20.03.1944 | “There has not been a single case of unnecessarily harsh treatment”
On March 20, 1944, the SD Sonderkommando stated in its final report that although there had been fatigue among both the army troops and the civilians during the strenuous marches to the final camps, they had not recorded a single case of unnecessarily harsh treatment,...
19.03.2019 | Book Release in the Belarusian National Library
The Belarusian National Library organized a ceremony to present the book Polesie: Tragödie und Erinnerung: Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Ozarichi Death Camp, 1944, written by former deportees Arkady Shkuran and Mikhail Sinkevich.Arkady Shkuran emphasizes: “Ozarichi was a...
19.03.2019 | “No barking dogs, no shots”
The National Library of Belarus held an event dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Azaryčy camps. During the meeting, German history professors Christoph Rass and Adam Kerpel-Fronius also spoke about the culture of remembrance in Germany. At the...
18.03.2019 – 20.03.2019 | The Geschichtswerkstatt “Leonid Lewin“ Minsk Commemorates the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Azaryčy Extermination Camp
3D model of the Memorial in Azaryčy. Please click on the picture to view the model. From March 18 to 20, 2019, commemorative events were held in Belarus to mark the liberation of the Azaryčy extermination camp. Organized by IBB J. Rau Minsk, the Leonid Lewin History...
18.03.1944 | “Didn’t think that we would be liberated at some point”
Zinaida Petrovna Lemeshkova provides a recollection of her family’s harrowing experiences during World War II, particularly focusing on their time at the Azaryčy concentration camp. She paints a picture of the camp’s grim conditions, detailing the...
18.03.1944 | “Here they come, our rescuers”
Valentina Shishlo was born in February 1936 in the village of Bielica near Žlobin and experienced the horrors of World War II as a young girl. During the German occupation, her family first lived in her grandparents’ house and later in a cramped stable. In...
18.03.1944 | Evgeniy Novitskiy’s Testimony II
Evgeniy Novitskiy, born in Zmiajoŭka, Belarus, in 1932 describes his liberation from the Azaryčy concentration camp: Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Stiftung. Access via:...
18.03.1944 | Liberation
German soldiers left their positions in the night of March 16/17, 1944, thus completing the shift of the front line. The deported civilians remained in the camps near Azaryčy. The final report of the 9th Army headquarter states that Soviet reconnaissance forces only...
March 1944 | “Instead of water, we collected snow”
Zinaida Petrovna Lemeshkova’s narrative delves into the harrowing experiences her family endured at the Azaryčy concentration camp. She describes the camp’s grim setup, surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers manned by armed German soldiers. Zinaida...
16.03.1944 (?) | “Several thousand uncounted infants”
The 9th army headquarters meticulously counted the number of deported civilians. Twice a day, they listed how many civilians were brought into each camp, adding up to at least 41.000. These numbers, however, cannot be taken as absolut truths – the documentalist noted...
16.03.1944 | “Final goals achieved”
On March 16, 1944, the SD final report states that all transports arrived in the so-called “Endlager Süd”, “Mitte” and “Nord” (“final camp South”, “Center” and “North”) . According to the intelligence...
15.03.1944 | Civilian Labor Service Unit
In his war diary, the 56th Tank Corps Quartermaster reports on the decision to only sort out deported cilivians who were fit for military service instead of those fit for work as originally planned. This affected 1.500 civilians who were then forced to join the local...
March 1944 | “They tore the children away and threw them onto the truck”
Arkadii Shkuran, born on July 25, 1934, in Paraslišča, experienced the German attack as a seven-year-old child. His father, grandfather and uncle were arrested in August 1942 as partisan helpers and got executed later. In March 1944, the Wehrmacht marched to Azaryčy,...
15.03.1944 | “Put down”
On March 15, 1944, two days after his first encounter with the deportations, Josef Perau visited the deportation camp near Rudabielka. At that time, about 10.000 civilians were gathered in a makeshift camp near the railhead, waiting to be marched towards the camp at...
14.03.1944 | “2.600 people on average”
According to the 9th Army final report, on the first three days of the operation, a total of nine trains, each carrying 2.600 civilians on average, left the collection train stations (German: Einladebahnhöfe) in Žlobin, Krasny Bierah and Cialuša. The report also...
14.03.1944 | Evgeniy Novitskiy’s Testimony
Evgeniy Novitskiy, born in 1932 in Zmiajoŭka, Belarus, describes the deportation of his family to the Azaryčy concentration camp: Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation. Access via:...
14.03.1944 | “Recklessness”
On March 14, 1944, a captain in the 253rd Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht filed a complaint against a sentence he recieved from the division’s court martial for fraternizing with a female interpreter. He argued that the accusations were proven wrong by his recent...
13.03.1944 | “Completely in vain”
3D model of the Memorial in Rudabielka. Please click on the picture to view the model. On March 13, 1944, Josef Perau, a Wehrmacht chaplain deployed near Rudabielka, wrote in his diary that none of the troops had time for prayer. Everybody was busy deporting...
March 1944 | “People begged for death”
Anastasia Antonovna Veras, a resident of the village of Čyrkavičy in the Homieĺ region, shares her wartime experiences from living on the occupied territory. She vividly describes the shifts in village governance during the war. She and her family were later deported....
12.03.1944 | “A much higher number of people than planned”
In its final report, the 9th Army headquarters gives a detailed account of the Azaryčy deportations as a blueprint for further similar operations. The deportation of civilians began by 4 a.m. on March 12, 1944. The number of deported civilians soon exceeded the...
12.03.1944 | Loosening up Combat Zones
3D model of the Memorial in Rudabielka. Please click on the picture to view the model. On March 12, 1944, the registration of 20.000 civilians suffering from typhus and otherwise unfit for work as well as small children and infants destined to be dropped off in...
20.11.1945 – 01.10.1946 | Nuremberg Trials: Scrutinizing the Violence in Azaryčy
At the beginning of 1944, before the liberation by the Red Army, the Germans set up three concentration camps without accommodation in the Azaryčy regions of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic and imprisoned tens of thousands of people from the neighboring...
19.03.2015 | Anniversary of the Azaryčy Camps’ Liberation
For many years, reports on the commemoration of the liberation of the Azaryčy camps have appeared on Belarusian state television every March. Here is an example of a typical report on this chain of events, which was broadcast by state-run ONT TV in 2015. Pay attention...
2011 | Information Portal to Places of Remembrance in Europe
3D model of the Memorial in Azaryčy. Please click on the picture to view the model. The Information Portal to Places of Remembrance in Europe (Gedenkstättenportal zu Orten der Erinnerung in Europa) by the Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Stiftung...
08.05.2015 | Matinée “Ozarichi 1944 – Traces of a War Crime”
To mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the war, the Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes – Bund der Antifaschistinnen und Antifaschisten, VVN-BdA (Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime – League of Anti-Fascists), in Lüneburg hosted a matinée at...
09.03.1944 | “Primarily people suffering from epidemics, cripples and the elderly”
On March 9, 1944, the quartermaster of the 56th Tank Corps records the decisions regarding the deportations near Azaryčy announced during the Head Quartermasters’ meeting in his war diary. According to him, those who were to be deported were primarily the sick,...
09.03.1944 | “First and fundamental discussion”
In its final report, the 9th Army headquarters reconstructs the events leading to the Azaryčy deportations. According to the report, the first operation meeting took place on March 9, 1944, discussing organisational matters of the deportation. Meticulously, the...
2018 | “I try to imagine what happened behind the fence between March 12 and March 17, 1944, but I see only the swamp.”
Navid Kermani, a freelance author from Cologne, reports in his 2018 travel diary “Entlang den Gräben. Eine Reise durch das östliche Europa bis nach Isfahan” about his experiences during his research travels, which took him to Eastern Europe and the Middle...
07.03.1944 | No Movement Towards Remote Areas
This telex, issued by the Army High Command, deals with an order according to which the movement of civilians living in vicinity of the front line towards occupied areas further backwards was prohibited. Despite this prohibition, approximately 1.000 civilians from the...
13.08.2018 | Camp Survivors Visit Lüneburg
The press release published on 13 August 2018 on the website of the socialist youth organization Socialist Youth Germany – The Falcons (Sozialistische Jugend Deutschland – Die Falken) reports on the visit of six survivors of the Azaryčy death camps in Lüneburg. The...
12.12.2014 | “A questionable memorial”
Karlsruhe is home to a controversial memorial to the 35th Infantry Division, which was dedicated on May 30, 1964. This memorial commemorates the fallen soldiers of the division from the Second World War and was donated by the Comrades Service of the 35th Infantry...
Early March 1944 | Army High Command Justifies Its Plans
Germany’s 9th Army saw itself confronted with a dire situation in its sector during the winter of 1943/1944 because the enforced recruitment for labor of all able-bodied men and women in its area of command had resulted in left-behind family dependents who were...
01.03.1944 | Map of Rudabielka Unloading Station
3D model of the Memorial in Rudabielka. Please click on the picture to view the model. This is an off-scale sketch of the Rudabielka unloading station highlighting transport routes, storage areas and accommodation for the 129th army infantry division. Later that...
25.02.1944 | Rudabielka Unloading Station
3D model of the Memorial in Rudabielka. Please click on the picture to view the model. On February 25, 1944, the General Command of the 56th Tank Corps ordered the construction of the Rudabielka unloading station. This order is divided into several parts, ranging from...
18.02.1944 | Bilingual Address Order Concerning Typhus
To contain the spread of typhus, the following orders were issued by the German army:Any movement outside the home is forbidden and leaving home is only allowed when accompanied by a German soldier. Offenders can be shot. These regulations were issued in Russian for...
11.05.1946 | “Which returnee can provide information?”
In May 1946 the Badener Tagblatt published a collective report of missing persons, including a reference to Walter Klöpfer, who had been missing near Azaryčy since January 19, 1944. The editors asked returnees for information on his whereabouts. „Obgefr. Walter...
16.04.1944 | “Let happiness dawn on them”
On April 16, 1944, a propaganda article was published in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia describing the situation in the territories occupied by the German army during the Second World War. It used the letter of thanks from the survivors of Azaryčy, which was published...
04.02.1944 | Mud Period
At the beginning of February 1944, the 56th Tank Corps was preparing for a mud period in the coming months in order to keep transport and supply routes intact. Due to thawing weather and heavy rain, the following measures would have to be taken: Establishing...
31.01.1944 | Railroad Construction Rudabielka
3D model of the memorial in Rudabielka. Please click on the picture to view the model. On January 31, 1944, a telex from the 56th Tank Corps to the 4th Tank Division and 35th Infantry Division arrived. The order includes the further construction of the railroad to the...