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Solemn Ceremony at the “Yama” Memorial

On 2^nd March former ghetto and concentration camp prisoners, World War II veterans, officials and the Minsk Jewish community members got together at the “Yama” (“Pit”) memorial in Minsk to take part in the solemn ceremony in the memory of five thousand Jews killed here in 1942. The mourning meeting was initiated by the Union of Belarusian Jewish Associations and Communities. Participants of the meeting said prayers and laid wreaths to the monument which bears inscription in Russian and Yiddish.

Nearly 800 000 Jews were killed in Belarus during World War II. The biggest tragedy in the history of the Minsk Jewish community happened on March 2, 1942. On that day the fascists arranged a pogrom in the city. Five thousand innocent people were massacred in the Minsk ghetto for no reason at all, or rather just for one “reason”  1; they were Jews. Among massacred were children from the Jewish kindergarten and patients and staff of the infectious diseases hospital. Next day dead bodies were thrown into the pit and covered with soil.

Later the memorial was built on the burial place in the form of a pit (hence its name “Yama”). It is located almost in the centre of Minsk. Pupils of the neighboring school take care of the memorial reminding present and future generations of the importance of tolerance and respect to all nations and ethnical minorities.

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