Motal Ghetto or Motol ghetto (summer 1941 - spring 1942) was a Jewish ghetto established during the Holocaust in the town of Motal, located in the Ivanava Raion of the Brest region, Belarus. This ghetto was a site of forced relocation for Jews from Motol and nearby settlements during the Nazi occupation of Belarus in World War II.[1]
Occupation of Motol and the creation of the ghetto
Motol was captured by German troops on June 26, 1941. Shortly after the occupation, the Germans, in line with Hitler's program of exterminating Jews, established a Judenrat (Jewish council) in the town and confined the Jewish population into a ghetto.[2][3]
Destruction of the ghetto
The German authorities were highly concerned about potential Jewish resistance. Consequently, they prioritized the execution of Jewish men aged 15 to 50, even before the ghetto's full establishment, despite the economic impracticality of killing able-bodied prisoners. On August 2, 1941, German forces surrounded the town and gathered all the Jews in the market square. The Jewish men, both adults and children, were then lined up and escorted approximately one kilometer from Motol towards the village of Osovnica, where they were forced to dig their own graves before being shot and buried in four pits to the east of the village. Additionally, a group of Jews was burned alive in a barn in Osovnica. A total of 1,400 Jewish men were killed on that day. Local residents were compelled to cover the pits.[2][4][3]
On August 3, 1941, the surviving Jewish women and children were assembled in the town center and then taken to the Gay tract, located 500 meters south of Motol on the road to the village of Kalily, where they were shot. Over these two days, the Nazis killed 1,550 Jews in what they euphemistically referred to as "actions."[2][5][3]
In the spring of 1942, during the final liquidation of the Motal Ghetto, approximately 1,500 Jews were executed. According to the ChGK (Extraordinary State Commission), a total of about 3,000 Jews were killed or buried alive in Motol, including around 1,000 refugees from Poland (1939–1940) and the rest being permanent residents of Motol.[6][7]
Memory
A memorial sign has been erected at one of the execution pits near Osovnica (0.5 km east of the village) to honor the victims of the Jewish genocide. Additionally, a monument stands at the mass grave in the Gay tract. Incomplete lists of the Jews killed in Motol have been published to preserve their memory.[8]
References
