Elimination - worst day in history of Brest ghetto

The residents of the Brest ghetto were subjected to many prohibitions: they could not marry or have children, walk on sidewalks, pick up anything from the ground, or attend cultural institutions or schools. Violation of any of the taboos was punishable by death.

In the ghetto itself, people were in terrible conditions: sleeping on the floor and starving. According to the recollections of local residents, corpses were carried out of the ghetto every day.

The shooting of the ghetto prisoners began at the very beginning of the occupation. One of the mass Jewish burial grounds is located at the intersection of Masherov Street and Kuybyshev Street. The mass grave was accidentally discovered during the construction of an apartment building. Today there is a memorial sign near the place of civilians execution.

The worst day in the history of the Brest ghetto was the day of elimination. On the night of October 14 to 15, 1942, many cars and soldiers came to the center of the city. The ghetto was surrounded: there were gendarmes and policemen every meter away, and machine guns at the gates. Thousands of people were led out in the direction of the Brest Fortress.

After the war, Brest residents recalled: the ghetto inhabitants marched through the city to the execution silently, holding hands. At one section of the railroad, the Jews were ordered to board a freight train. Most of them already suspected that this was the last time they would see their hometown.

The trip to Bronnaya Gora itself proved to be a torture that many could not endure. Right in the woods, the freight cars would stop. People had to walk the last 38 meters without clothes and then stand for several more hours in the October cold waiting to die.

It was a horrible execution place. No names, no dates, no fencing: the Nazis left nothing to remind of their innocently tortured victims. There are huge mass graves. Trees do not grow there even today. And the locals bypass the forest.

Local historian Elizaveta Mshar has been collecting information about Bronnaya Hill for 25 years. She wrote to archives, searched the neighboring villages for eyewitnesses and methodically wrote down everything they narrated. And they told terrible things. She says, her heart chills from what she heard.