Maly Trostenets (Maly Trascianiec, Belarusian: Малы Трасцянец, "Little Trostenets") is a village near Minsk in Belarus, formerly the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. During Nazi Germany's occupation of the area during World War II (when the Germans referred to it as Reichskommissariat Ostland), the village became the location of a Nazi extermination site.[1]
Throughout 1942, Jews from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were taken by train to Maly Trostenets to be lined up in front of the pits and were shot.[1] From the summer of 1942, mobile gas vans were also used.[2][3] According to Yad Vashem, the Jews of Minsk were murdered and buried in Maly Trostenets and in another village, Bolshoi Trostinets, between 28 and 31 July 1942 and on 21 October 1943.[1] As the Red Army approached the area in June 1944, the Germans murdered most of the prisoners and destroyed the camp.[1]
The estimates of how many people were murdered at Maly Trostenets vary. According to Yad Vashem, 65,000 Jews were murdered in one of the nearby pine forests, mostly by shooting.[3] Holocaust historian Stephan Lehnstaedt believes the number is higher, writing that at least 106,000 Jews were murdered at the location. Researchers from the Soviet Union estimated there had been around 200,000 murders at the camp and nearby execution sites. Lehnstaedt writes that the estimates include the Jews of the Minsk Ghetto, who numbered 39,000 to almost 100,000.[4][a]
- ^ a b c d "Maly Trostinets" (PDF). Yad Vashem. Archived (PDF) from the original on 29 November 2003.
- ^ Heberer, Patricia (2008). "Justice in Austrian Courts? The Case of Josef W. and Austria's Difficult Relationship with Its Past". In Heberer, Patricia; Matthäus, Jürgen (eds.). Atrocities on Trial: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Prosecuting War Crimes. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. p. 131.
- ^ a b "Maly Trostenets, Camp, Belorussia (USSR)". The International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem. Archived from the original on 5 June 2019.
- ^ Lehnstaedt, Stephan (2016) [2010]. Occupation in the East: The Daily Lives of German Occupiers in Warsaw and Minsk, 1939–1944. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-78533-323-1.
- ^ Smilovitsky, Leonid (Summer–Winter 1999). "Ilya Ehrenburg on the Holocaust in Belarus: Unknown Testimony". East European Jewish Affairs. 29 (1–2): 61–74. doi:10.1080/13501679908577892. Archived from the original on 14 December 2002.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).