The Holocaust in Chachersk District

Background

Before 1919, the shtetl of Chachersk, located in what is now the Gomel Oblast of Belarus, was part of the Pale of Settlement, the only region of the Russian Empire in which Jews could permanently reside. As a result, Eastern Belarus had a substantial Jewish population; a January 1939 Soviet census estimated the Jewish population of the region at 375,000, with 62,146 living in the Gomel Oblast specifically and around 977 in the shtetl of Chachersk itself.

Invasion and evacuation

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa, an offensive driven in part by Nazi ideology's aim of clearing conquered territory of populations deemed "life unworthy of life." Because Chachersk had a predominantly Jewish population along with a substantial Romani community, the district was targeted for genocide. German forces advancing into Eastern Belarus and the Gomel Oblast faced resistance from partisans and Red Army units, but the last pockets of organized resistance were eliminated by August and September 1941, leaving local Jewish communities without protection. Upon learning of the approaching Wehrmacht and of Nazi atrocities elsewhere, the Jews of Chachersk organized a mass evacuation that succeeded in removing most of the shtetl's Jewish population; approximately 200 people remained when German forces occupied the area.

Ghettoization and mass murder

Chachersk was captured by German forces on August 14, 1941, and placed under the administrative jurisdiction of the rear area of Army Group Center, commanded by General der Infanterie Max von Schenckendorff. In September 1941, a ghetto was established in Chachersk for the roughly 200 remaining Jews. Conditions in the ghetto were harsh, and Jews who disobeyed German orders were imprisoned, where some died of starvation. In late November 1941, 80 Jews were rounded up and executed in an anti-tank ditch. On December 28, 1941, on orders from General Schenckendorff, the Chachersk ghetto was liquidated. Jews and local Romani people were shot and buried together in a mass grave in an operation that killed a total of 432 people. The killings were carried out jointly by Einsatzgruppen death squads, Wehrmacht soldiers, and the Belarusian Auxiliary Police, with regular army units reported to have fully participated. The Belarusian Auxiliary Police were noted for searching out Jews in hiding even after the mass killings had concluded.