Ghettos and the Holocaust Problem

in Belorussia

by Leonid Smilovitsky (Ph. D),

Diaspora Research Center, Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of the Humanities, Tel Aviv University

Preface

The tragedy of Jewry during World War II continues to be a touchstone, which helps determine the real attitude of society and the State to the Jewish problem. Until the end of the 1980s, in Byelorussia, as well as in the Soviet Union in general, they avoided talking about the fate of Jews in the occupied territory. Traditions of Soviet internationalism precluded providing heightened attention to one national catastrophe over any other. It was considered that Russia lost so many Russians, Ukraine - Ukrainians, Belorussia - Belorussians, Georgia - Georgians, Armenia - Armenians etc., that it wasn't appropriate to separate the Jewish genocide from all others. The death of Soviet Jews was regarded exclusively in the light of the USSR's stand against Germany, thus the term "genocide" was not used during the first 15 years after the end of the Second World War. It was therefore assumed, that the murder of Jews during the occupation was not so much a result of them being Jews, as that they were "Soviets"

During the 10 years since the announce ment in 1991 of independence of the Republic of Belarus, attitudes in the republic towards the Holocaust have changed very much. On one hand, it was admitted that the genocide of Jews in the territory of the republic existed, that Jews actively participated in the resistance to the Nazis, prohibitions of scientific publications about the Holocaust were lifted, archives opened, conferences and symposiums were permitted and Doctoral Dissertations recognized. On the other hand, authorities continued to insist that the genocide of the Jews was only one component of the tragedy suffered by all people of Byelorussia. This is not historically correct, because the Nazis did not kill native Belorussian, Russian, Ukrainians and other non-Jewish people according to their ethnic origins. Publications of scientific works devoted to the Holocaust, collections of documents, and monographs are paltry and only several hundred copies exist. At the same time, Belorussian history textbooks (about 30 titles in 1992-2002) include only from several lines to one paragraph, simply mentioning this theme, avoiding analysis and explanation of reasons (1).

The paradoxical situation emerged when neither the local authorities nor the Jewish organizations of the regions of Belorussia have clear imagination about the basic places of genocide. The Department for the Protection of the Monuments of History and Culture of the local Executive Committees of Provincial Councils remained the only competent organizations. However, the Jewish nature of burials concealed many mysteries, and information about them was fragmentary and contradictory. The first attempt to create the register of monuments to the victims of genocide in Belorussia was undertaken by Marat Botvinnik in 2000. In his guidebook "Monuments of genocide of the Jews of Belorussia", information is placed in alphabetical order for each Belorussian province. The Guide contains the data about the monuments, the memorials and the commemorative signs with the indication of the sources used . Until now, this is the only experience of the systematic information about the places of the destruction of Jews on the territory of the former Soviet Union (2).

Demographic Changes After the Holocaust in Belorussia

As a result of the Second World War, irreversible changes occurred in the demographic structure of the population of Belorussia. In July 1944, when the territory of republic was liberated from Nazis, its total population was 6,293,600, down from 10,528,000 in May 1941(3). According to official data, the population losses due to military operations, the extermination of the civil population by the Nazis, wounds, hunger and disease was 2,200,000 (4). According to other sources, the number of victims in Belorussia was about 3,000,000 (5). The genocide by the Nazis was directed first and foremost against the Jews. In Eastern Byelorussia, the individual's chances to escape varied depending on the social group to which he/she belonged, the place of residence, one's degree of being informed and the resoluteness to leave one's belongings behind. In the former Pale of Settlement, younger people, Soviet officials and professionals had more chances to escape in comparison with the older people and common workers. It was easier to escape from large cities than from small towns; however, one's chances strongly depended on the time available for escaping.

The total number of the Holocaust victims in Belorussia is still unclear and debates on the issue are still going on. M. Gilbert is of the opinion that 245,000 Jews perished in the genocide, R. Chernoglazova, quotes 376,851, V. Adamushko mentions 455,100, A. Bagrovich 500,000, D. Meltser and V. Levin 700,390, E. Ioffe 811,000, A. Leizerov 800,000, and R. Hillberg, 1,000,000 (6). To the loss of the Jewish civil population one should add the losses among Jewish soldiers. 110,000 Belorussian Jews were drafted or volunteered into the Red Army. Of the total half-million of the Jewish soldiers in the Red Army who fought against the Nazis, 216,000 fell in action. According to Prof. E. Ioffe, 48,000 of them were from Belorussia (7). In our view, it is possible that about 800.000 Jews perished during WWII. In the western regions of Byelorussia, there were practically no Jews before the war. Jews from the eastern regions settled there after the war.

The Holocaust, which reduced the Jewish population in Belorussia from 12 percent of the total population in 1941 to 1.9 percent, destroyed the traditional demographic pattern. Jews, who were second in numbers after the Belorussians, became third after the Russians. The result was not only a physical reduction of the Jewish population. The location of the compact Jewish residence has been changed, migration widened, interest in the national language weakened, and the number of mixed marriages has grown. Not only the Jewish cultural heritage and Yiddish have been lost, but also assimilation has increased. On the other hand, the consequences of the Holocaust increased the national self-identity of the Jews. On the whole, the changes after the war in the demographic situation influenced the general policy of nationalities in Belorussia. Not only the Jews, but also other minorities lost their rights, too. The attributes of national life were granted only to the Belorussians. But these attributes were formal in essence and did not promote a free national and cultural development. The way to Belorussia's Russification was open. The Union Center was transforming the republic into a test site for national uniformization.

Level of Research

In Belorussia, whose losses during the war were heavier than in any other Soviet republic, the German policy of genocide of civilians had been studied comprehensively enough (8). Yet, no special mention of Jewish victims was made.

The subject of the Holocaust has long been drawing the attention of researchers. The first publications, essentially memories, appeared in Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian and English back in the late 1940s and in the 1950s. They described the experience of former ghetto inmates who went all the way from the ghetto to participation in the Resistance and freedom (9). These works are in many respects naive, superficial and tendentious. However, they contain invaluable factual material, convey the atmosphere of the epoch, and arouse the reader's empathy. The 1960s-1990s decades saw monographs and serious studies on the Holocaust published mostly in Israel and in the West. They can be divided along several lines:

• Eve of the Holocaust (10)
• Publication of documents and materials on the Naxi policy towards the Jews (11)
• History of Ghettos (12)
• Jewish Resistance (13)
• Actions of Genocide (14)

In the former Soviet Union, literature on the history of the Holocaust appeared only after 1989. Lacking archive materials, Western historiography had to keep away from the subject in the immediate postwar years. The result was an information gap, which was being quickly filled in the 1990s (15). Israeli scholars and their colleagues in Western Europe and the United States made the most valuable research (16). Articles, reviews, reminiscences, collections of documents and monographs on the Holocaust published in 1996-1999 differ from the earlier works a great deal as regards professional level, depth of analysis, understanding the purport of events, and authenticity. The most striking contrast is presented by works written in Belorussia. They combine serious research (17) and emotions. A great part of the cited facts are based on oral accounts unsubstantiated by documents and are difficult to check (18). The relations between Jews and non-Jews in the occupied territory are an entirely new aspect in Russian-language historiography (19). Access to archives since the mid-1990s has greatly enriched the Holocaust historiography in Belorussia (20). Documents on the history of the Holocaust, lists of ghetto victims, descriptions of partisan actions in which Jews took part, lists of monuments on common graves, etc., began to appear in the Pamyat' (Memory) series of documented chronicles of Belorussian towns and districts which have been published since 1987.

Belarusian scholars are isolated from the achievements of their colleagues outside of the republic. These gaps they cannot complete with the aid of the Internet because of financial difficulties, and lack of knowledge of foreign languages (21).

Special Features of the Holocaust in Belorussia

• Belorussia was the first place in Europe where the Nazi mechanism of the total murder of Jews was tested.
• Belorussia became the place for the secret deportation and destruction of the Jews of the Reich and the occupied countries of Europe (Austria, France, Hungary, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia); from November 1941 to October 1942. In Minsk alone, up to 42.000 foreign Jews perished.
• In contrast to Latvia and Lithuania, prisoners from Belarus were not deported to the Death Camps after the decision to liquidate the ghettos was made, but they were murdered before the eyes of local residents.
• The Belarussian Jews (not less than 20,000) were active participants in the partisan movement in spite of the absence of directives from the General Headquarters of the Supreme Command in Moscow and the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement of Belarus.

Differences in the Ghettos of Eastern and Western Belorussia

• The Eastern part of the republic turned out to be in the military zone of the occupation of front-line area. Ghettos here did not have economic value and were destroyed first of all.
• The ghettos of Western Belarus existed longer, since they were involved in the economic plans of the Reich; their labor resources were used actively for the needs of the Wehrmacht and other troops of the German armed forces.
• The Soviet regime in 1921-1941 liquidated Jewish communal life in the Eastern regions. Therefore, in these regions, it was more difficult to organize the survival of the inmates in the ghettos by their own forces than in Western Belorussia.
• Eastern regions were considered most subjected to Soviet influence and capable of partisan warfare.

Formation of the Ghettos

In the territory of Belorussia in the borders of June 22, 1941, Nazis created more than 270 ghettos in four zones of occupation:

1. Under the control of the military government - 43
2. Region of "Bialystok" (a part of the Reich) - 110
3. Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien (Reichskommissariat "Ostland" ) - 70
4. Generalkommissariat "Volyn - Padoliya" - (Reichskommissariat " Ukraina" - 45

The majority of the ghettos (more than 150) existed in Western Belorussia, including the region of "Bialystok" - contemporary Grodno province (110). In Eastern Belorussia more than 100 ghettos were created.

In the territory of Belarus included in Reichskommissariat "Ukraina", there were 45 ghettos, the largest of which were located in Brest (27,000) and Pinsk (25,000).

In the zone of German military government (Minsk, Mogilev, Vitebsk provinces, large part of the Gomel province and some regions of Polesye province) there were 43 ghettos.

In Central and Eastern Belarus in the summer and fall of 1941, Einsatzgruppe B created ghettos. These measures were undertaken by it for the concentration of the Jews of the small ghettos before the destruction or by transfer into the large ghettos. All refugees (Jews and non Jews) were ordered to return to the place of prewar residence in order to expose strangers. The local organs of authority were obligated immediately report to Nazis about unknown persons.

Some ghettos in the territory of Belorussia (Minsk, Bialystok, Brest, Pinsk, Glubokoye, etc.) can be attributed to the typical for Eastern Europe. Judenrats led the internal life of ghettos, the Jewish police operated, productions was organized with the use of forced labor, etc. Separate ghettos in this region existed for longer time: in Brest - 10 months, in Minsk - 27, in Baranovichi - 29 months, etc.

The Minsk ghetto (100,000) proved to be the largest one in the territory of the USSR in the 1939 borders and the second after the ghetto in Lvov (139,000) - the largest in the USSR in the 1941 borders. A significant quantity of refugees from Western Belorussia found themselves in the capital of Belorussia. They did not have time to evacuate, since Belorussian leadership secretly left Minsk in the evening of June 24, 1941 (the city was captured on June 28, 1941) without the declaration of evacuation. In the fall of 1941, 7000 Jews of the Reich and Austria were deported into Minsk. They were placed into zonderghetto, separately from the Belorussian Jews, and the large part of them soon perished. Foreign Jews principally differed from Belorussian Jews and they happened to be most defenseless:

• They did not know the Russian language and so could not enter into communication with the local population to obtain aid from them.
• They were not fitted out for physical labor.
• They did not have reserves (clothing, personal belongings, money) to exchange for food.
• They suffered from local diseases, the effect of climate and so forth.
• They were influenced by Nazi propaganda and regarded themselves higher than Belorussian Jews.They charged the Soviet Jews with collaboration with Stalin's regime and considered them the culprits of Hitler's war against the USSR. At the same time there were examples of successful joint fights, when Ilza Stein and Lisa Gutkovich organized the successful escape of 25 prisoners with weapon to the partisans. This was accomplished with the aid of Hauptmann Willy Schulz.

Existence in the Ghetto

• Organization of the internal life in the ghetto
• Role of the Judenrats, the presence of the Jewish police
• Forced labor
• Trial by hunger
• Contacts with the external world
• Possibility of observing the traditions
• Interrelation between the prisoners of ghetto
• Behavior of Jewish and non-Jewish parents
• Children in the ghetto, the fate of children from mixed families
• Searches for rescuing, the organized escapes
• Righteous Among the Nations

Resistance to the Policy of Genocide

• Forms of resistance (active and passive)
• Underground groups in ghettos and connections with the partisans
• Family camps and detachments
• Participation in armed combat
• Anti-Semitism in the partisan movement

Actions of Mass Destruction of Jews

These actions were carried out by forces of Einsatzgruppen and Zondergruppen, police units of the SS, the Wehrmacht and local collaborators already in the summer of 1941. The staffs of the Belorussian police (100,000) were entirely formed . Volunteers from the "Belorussian People's Self-Help", "Union of the Belorussian Youth","Belorussian Land Defense", supplemented them. These groups shared views with the Nazi's doctrine of the "final solution of the Jewish question".

At the beginning of 1942, 250,000 Jews perished in Belorussia:

• 120,000 Jews in the zone of the military occupation of Belorussia
• 60,000 in the regions included in Reichskommissariat "Ostland"
• 70,000 in the Western Belarus regions included in Reichskommissariat "Ukraina" and the region of "Bialystok".

Punitive detachments ignored the position of civil German administration about the stopping of the executions of the prisoners of ghettos under the pretext of "economical needs". Gebietskomissar of Slutsk Karl and General Commissar of the of the Belorussia General Region Wilhelm Kube did complain to Berlin about the fact that the actions for the liquidation of the Jews did do economic damage to Reich and were carried out by "unworthy methods" and with sadism.

The greatest part of the Jews (550,000) did perish from winter 1942 through the fall of 1943, when liquidation of ghettos in Western and Central Belorussia was conducted in mass. The connection of Jews with the partisans was the basic pretext of these actions, although in reality these were the previously thought-out and planned actions. In this connection, a question remains open about the expediency of Kube's murder in Minsk by Stalin's order in October of 1943. Kube criticized the position of the SS in the Jewish question; his assassination accelerated the liquidation of the Minsk ghetto.

From the autumn of 1943 until the liberation of Belorussia during July 1944, the Nazis captured and killed Jews who survived the pogroms in the ghetto and the working camps (in Kolydchevo near Baranovichi the last prisoners were shot during March 1944). Jews (total 10,000 people) hiding in the forest family and partisan camps became the victims of punitive detachments.

Attitude of the Belorussian State to the Holocaust Experience

Before Alexander Lukashenko, the most "Soviet" president (1994) came to rule the Republic, there existed a splash of interest in the Holocaust. Later, without state attention and help, it decreased and almost expired. Sometimes, the fate of Jews in Belorussia during the war years and the meaning of the Holocaust became the basis of vivid scandals. On November 24, 1995, Lukashenko gave an interview to Markus Zimmer, a correspondent of the German newspaper Handelsblatt . He declared, "Not all of Hitler's actions were bad, one can learn from his methods of governing a country". He also compared the development of the two countries over a period of hundreds of years. "They reached their peaks at the time of Hitler. This corresponds to our conception of presidential power in a republic and the President's role in it." Although for unknown reasons Handelsblatt did not print the controversial statements, a radio correspondent who was present made them public in a broadcast in Belorussia. Furthermore, Lukashenko repeated some of his ideas on the Russian NTV television station. Among local reactions in Belorussia, the United Civil Party wrote in its bulletin of November-December 1995 that Lukashenko was "yearning for power... (in) Moscow and was comparing himself to Austrian-born Hitler" (22).

In July 1996, a new "Procedures Governing Access to Documents Containing Information Relating to the Secret Private Life of Citizens" was adopted. It denied access to information about Belorussians accused of treason, desertion, or collaboration. The rule has since been extended to functionaries in the Nazis' puppet police, citizens who voluntarily left for Germany, and KGB records on citizens repatriated to the USSR in 1945-1946 from Germany and countries occupied by or allied with Germany during the war.

In December of 1996, an exposition on "Nazi propaganda in Belorussia, 1941-1944" in the Minsk State Museum for the History of Great Patriotic War was closed only 19 days after a festive opening with participation of Godfrid Albrecht, the ambassador of Germany in Byelorussia. It was shown with success in Germany and was planned to be displayed in Brest and Grodno. According to the estimate of Professor Johans Schlots of the Free University in Berlin, the exhibition, which was derived from sources found in Belorussian archives, was a "contribution in the fight against Nazi, regardless of the guise under which it is shown".

Before 2000, Lukashenko did not name the Jews among those who won Belorussia's liberation from the Nazis, while about 20,000 Jews fought with the partisans and the underground BSSR (Belorussian Soviet Socialistic Republic) between 1941 and 1944. This doesn't include the scores of thousands of Jews who were members of the Krasnaya Army (Red Army).

In January 2000, during a visit to The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Yad Vashem (Jerusalem), Lukashenko promised that in Belorussia there would be no enmity based on race, national or religious grounds. In response to a speech by Israeli President Ezer Weitzman in July 2000, Lukashenko reiterated this promise in the presence of important guests and executives from the diplomatic missions of 23 countries at the dedication of the memorial complex at "Yama" in Minsk.

However, in spite of these statements, the city authorities rejected a project by Michael Gaufeld to immortalize the memory of victims of the genocide in Ubileinaya ploshchad' (Jubilee Square) in the center of the former Minsk ghetto. Instead of this project, they plan to open a museum of modern art, which will be a place for cultural activities for all people of Minsk. This would be a repetition of a situation in Poland, wherein people wanted to open a disco club near Auschwitz, a former concentration camp during WWII.

For restoring historical justice, the state must:

• Recognize the part of its fault for the occurred tragedy of Jews in the territory of Belorussia and the participation of Belorussian collaborationists with Nazis
• Equate the rights of ghetto inmates with the prisoners of Nazi concentration camps
• Grant the status and state aid to the Righteous Among the Nations, who saved Jews in the occupied territory at the risk of their own lives (about 200 names established so far
• Establish the central state memorial in the memory of 800.000 Jews, victims of Nazi genocide (until now, the memory of the victims of Holocaust is immortalized by the small monuments set by the relatives and close ones, compatriots and donations from Israel, USA, Germany and other places)
• Ensure the return of Jewish property, etc.

Compensation to Prisoners of the Ghettos

The national damage to Belorussia during the Soviet-German war was $15,000,000,000 ($4,720, 000,000 is the portion of the losses by citizens (23). The extent and the value of the withdrawn Jewish property remains an unstudied side of the Holocaust. The European Jewish Congress insists that the authorities of Belorussia must:

1. Return the Jewish property
2. Compensate the victims of the Holocaust
3. Preserve the places of mass burials of the victims of Holocaust, and Jewish cemeteries.

Immediately after German occupation of Belorussia, all property was declared the property of the German state. The police and security services regularly reported the expropriations carried out by their forces. In 1998, the State Committee of the Archive of the Belarus Republic, the National Archive of Belarus, published a collection of documents reflecting the confiscation of the personal savings and private property of Belorussian citizens: "Nazi gold from Belarus: documents and materials". The volume presents a picture of the Nazi policy of despoiling the local population during the occupation of this area between 1941 and 1944. Though the title does not indicate this, the book actually shows valuables and property taken from Jews: 7.1% in Bobruisk oblast' (region), 2.8% - Mogilev oblast', 2.7% - Baranovichi oblast', 0.6% - Brest oblast' and 2.4% - Vitebsk oblast'.

In the volume mentioned above, there is nothing about the participation of the local population in the robbery of Jewish property. Instead, the accent is on the fact that the Nazis persecuted non-Jews who stored the valuables of Jews. In reality, Jewish property reached the Belorussians as payments for concealment, in exchange for food, and as a result of robbery. Partisans accused the Jews of giving up their "gold" to Germans, and then running to save their skin into the forest.

Until the end of the 1990s, the authorities of Minsk objected to the activity of the "Conference for the Material Claims of Jews Against Germany" (Claims Conference) under the pretext that the compensation must be paid out to all Belorussians who suffered in the occupied territory. This position was repeated by the delegation of the republic at the international conference about the fate of Nazi gold in Washington (November 30 - December 3, 1998) (24).

Lessons of The Holocaust

The study of the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust in Belorussia is only at its beginning and needs to be continued:

• Conceptual works are absent
• The majority of publications are descriptive in nature and do not explain the essence of phenomenon
• Creative associations are not involved in the history of the Holocaust
• International cooperation of scholars on the problem of the Holocaust is absent
• Explore differences of the Holocaust in Belarus in comparison with other regions of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
• Explain the relations of Jews and non-Jews in the occupied territory
• Show the contribution of Jews to the Resistance
• Study scale of the losses of the Jewish population in Belorussia and other important questions
• Study of the Holocaust in all educational institutions from elementary and high schools to universities.

References

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15. E. Yoffe. Pages of the history of Belorussian Jews. Minsk, 1997.; R. Chernoglazova, (compiler) . Tragediia evreev Belorussii v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 1941-1944 gg. Sbornik materialov i documentov (Tragedy of Belorussian Jewry during the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1944. Collection of materials and documents, 2nd edition, Minsk, 1997; Nazi gold from Belorussia. Collection of materials and documents. Minsk, 1998; I.Altman.Victims of the hostility: Holocaust in the USSR, 1941-1945. Moscow, 2002.

16. Sh. Cholawski. "Underground and Partisans from the Slonim Ghetto" , Massuah, No. 23, 1995, pp. 185-198 (Hebrew); D. Porat. "Zionists and Communists in the Underground during the Holocaust: Three Examples: Krakow, Kovno and Minsk", The Journal of Israeli History, vol. 18, No 1 (1997), pp. 57-72; Ch. Gerlach. "Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilev, Belorussia", Holocaust and Genocide Studies .Washington, vol. 11, No 1, Spring 1997, pp. 60-78; D.J. Goldhagen. Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York, 1996; N. Tec. Jewish Resistance: Facts, Omissions and Distortions, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Washington. 1997; A.Geier . Heroes of the Holocaust. New York, 1998; Bernhard Chiary. Alltag hinter der Front. Besatzung, Kollaboration und Widerstand in Weisrusland, 1941-1944. Schirften des Bundes archivs, Bd. 53. Dusseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1998; D. Romanovsky. The Holocaust in the Eyes of "Homo-Sovieticus": A Survey Based on Northeastern Belorussia and North-western Russia, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, No 13 (3). Winter, 1999, pp. 355-382; M.Dean. Collaboration in the Holocaust. Crimes of the Local Police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941-1944. New York - London, 2000.

17. M.Savoniako. Nazis labour and death camps on the territory of Belorussia During Great Patriotic War, 1941-1944. Ph.D. thesis, Minsk, 1993; E .Pozenblat, I. Elenskya. Jews of Pinsk, 1939-1944. Brest, 1997; G.Knat' ko. Destruction of Minsk ghetto. Minsk, 1999; I. Servachinsky. Collaboration on the occupied territories of Belorussia (July 1941- August 1944). Ph.D. thesis. Minsk; A.Litvin. Occupation of Belorussia, 1941-1944. Collection of articles. Minsk, 2000 ; A.Litvin. Peoples' losses in Belorussian During Great Patriotic War, 1941-1944 , Belarus in 20 stagoddzi. Vol. 1, Minsk, 2002, p. 127-138.

18. David Gay. Desiaty krug. Zhizn' , borba I gibel' Minskogo getto (Life, struggle and destruction of Minsk ghetto), Moscow, 1991; V. Samovich. Rasstreliannye, zamuchennye I poveshennye. Fashistskii genotsid v Breste (Nazis genocide in Brest), Brest, 1994; Rozembloom. Sledy v trave zabvenia. Evrei v istorii Borisova (Jews in the history of Borisov). Borisov, 1996; G.Vinnitsa. Slovo pamiati (Word of memory), Orsha, 1997; Sima Margolina. Ostat' sia zhit' (Remain to live). Minsk, 1997.

19. G. Kupreeva. Pokinuty narod (Abandoned people), Belarusskaya minuushchina, 2, 1993; b Mishe. The Preliminary draft. Jerusalem, 1994; R.Levin. Mal' chik iz getto (Boy from ghetto) Moscow, 1996; D. Romanovsky."Holocaust in East Belorussia and North-West Russia by eyes of non-Jews". Vestnik evreiskogo universiteta v Moskve, 2(9), 1995, pp. 93-103; D. Romanovsky. Mutual relations between Jews and non-Jews on the occupied Soviet territories by eyes of Jews on the example of North-East of Belorussia and West Russia, ibid, 1(18), 1998., pp. 89-122; B. Zhitnitskaya. Zhizn'prozhitaya s nadezhdoy (Life with hope). Ramat Gan, 1998, etc.

20. E.Yoffe. "Holocaust of Belorussian Jewry in the home historiography". History of Belarus. Questions of History and Culture. Vol. II (Minsk, 1998), pp. 99-106; D. Romanovsky."Holocaust on the territory of Belarus in West historiography", ibid., pp. 81-98; German propaganda in Belarus, 1941-1944. Catalogue of exhibition in Berlin and Minsk, 1996; L. Smilovitsky. "A Historiographical Survey of the Literature on the Holocaust in Belorussia, 1996-1998", Shvut, No. 8(24), 1998.

21. Using of Internet service in Belorussia now is one of the most expensive in East Europe and CIS. V. Rubinchik. "Internet. Jews and Belarus", ARCHE 3, Minsk, pp. 50-64.

22. Anti-Semitism Worldwide, 1995/96. Tel Aviv University. Tel Aviv, 1996, p. 121.

23. Prestupleniya nemetsko-fashistskikh zakhvatchikov v Belorussii, 1941-1944 (Crimes of the Nazis invaders in Belorussia). Collection of materials and documents. Minsk, 1963, pp. 347-349.

24. L. Smilovitsky."Nazi Confiscation of Jewish Property in Belorussia", Jews in Eastern Europe, No 1(37), 1998, pp. 75-79.

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