| Bronna Góra | |
|---|---|
 Old train tracks leading to location of forest massacres at Bronna Góra | |
  Location of Bronna Góra in World War II,(northeast ofSobibor extermination camp) | |
  Bronna Mount Location of Bronna Góra in modern dayBelarus (see above) | |
| Location | Bronna Góra,Polesie Voivodeship, occupiedSecond Polish Republic 52°36′7″N25°4′46″E / 52.60194°N 25.07944°E /52.60194; 25.07944 |
| Date | May 1942 – November 1942 |
| Incident type | Mass killings over execution pits dug in the forest |
| Perpetrators | Schutzstaffel (SS) |
| Participants | SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) |
| Ghetto | Brześć,Bereza,Janów Poleski,Kobryn,Horodec (pl),Pińsk Ghetto |
| Victims | 50,000 Jews |
| Notes | The Holocaust in Poland |
Bronna Góra (or Bronna Mount in English,Belarusian:Бронная Гара,Bronnaja Hara) is the name of a secluded area in present-dayBelarus where mass killings ofPolish Jews were carried out byNazi Germany duringWorld War II. The location was part of theeastern half ofoccupied Poland, which had beeninvaded by the Soviet Union in 1939in agreement with Germany, and two years later captured by theWehrmacht inOperation Barbarossa. It is estimated that from May 1942 until November of that year, during themost deadly phase ofthe Holocaust in Poland, some 50,000 Jews were murdered at Bronna Góra forest in death pits. The victims were transported there inHolocaust trains fromNazi ghettos, including from theBrześć Ghetto and thePińsk Ghetto, and from the ghettos in the surrounding area, as well as fromReichskommissariat Ostland (present-dayWestern Belarus).[1][2][3]
After a century of foreign domination, theSecond Polish Republic became an independent state at the end ofWorld War I. Bronna Góra was part of thePolesie Voivodeship, and remained so until the Nazi-Sovietinvasion of Poland in 1939.[4] With a railway stop at the edge of the woods,[5] Bronna Góra became the location of secluded massacres in 1942, withtrainloads of Jews transported and dislodged there from theBrześć Ghetto, thePińsk Ghetto,[6] and all other ghettos created by Nazi Germany in the area.[5]
Following theSoviet invasion of 1939, Bronna Góra along with most of Polesie Voivodeship wasannexed into the Soviet Belarus afterthe NKVD-staged elections decided in the atmosphere of terror.[7][8] All citizens previously living but also born in Poland would live in theByelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic from then on, as the Soviet subjects, not Polish.[9] However, the Soviet rule was short-lived because the corresponding terms of theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed earlier in Moscow were broken when theGerman Army crossed theSoviet occupation zone on 22 June 1941. From 1941 to 1943 the province was under the control of Nazi Germany,[10] govern by thecollaborationistByelorussian Central Council supported by the Nazi Belarusian battalions of theByelorussian Home Defence.[11]
The first murder operation took place in June 1942, with 3,500 Jews transported from the Pińsk Ghetto and nearbyKobryn for "processing" (durchschleusen),[a] at Bronna Góra.[5] According to postwar testimony of Benjamin Wulf, a Polish Jew fromAntopal who managed to survive the massacre,[14] the train stop was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. The prisoners were informed by a translator that washing stations were in the woods behind. They were ordered to leave their outer garments by the train and take only the soap and towel. Those who did not have soap were told not to worry because it had been supplied. The path through the woods, surrounded by barbed wire, was heavily guarded. It became narrower until the sounds of shooting made it clear what went on at the end of the trail. The Jews who attempted to escape by crossing the fence were shot on the wires. Further up, the path opened to an area with execution pits 4 metres (13 ft) deep and 60 metres (200 ft) long, dug under the gun by hundreds of local laborers. Explosive materials were used to speed up the digging process.[14] The fresh new victims were brought into the trenches and were shot one by one over the bodies of others.[14] According to a witness interviewed byYahad-In Unum, 52,000 people were killed in Bronna Góra, including Jews and people who were believed to be linked topartisans.[15]
In March 1944, as theRed Army advanced, the Germans attempted to erase the evidence of the massacres. A specialSonderaktion 1005 was brought in from outside,[16] consisting of 100 slave workers. For the next two weeks, they exhumed mass graves and burned the bodies on pyres. When they were finished, trees were planted, and all of the prisoners were shot.[1] After the war, at the 1945Potsdam Conference,Poland's borders were redrawn and Bronna Góra became part of theByelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. A memorial was erected at the site commemorating the perished Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union.[5]
September 20th, 1939 telegram to Gestapo regional and subregional headquarters on the "basic principles of internal security during the war".
| Groups |
| ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synagogues |
| ||||||||
| Yeshivas | |||||||||
| The Holocaust |
| ||||||||
.svg)