Documentary exhibition «Tragedy and heroism of the Jews of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War»
On August 19, 2025, a meeting was held at the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus between the First Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Belarus N.N.Filippova and the Director of the NATIV Liaison Bureau of the Office of the Prime Minister of the State of Israel Alon Shoham.
As part of the information support for this visit, the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus (NARB) together with the Belarusian State Archive of Film, Photo, and Sound Documents (BSACFPD) presented a documentary exhibition «Tragedy and Heroism of the Jews of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War», as well as a banner exhibition «No Statute of Limitations. Belarus».
The Nazi Holocaust policy in Belarus led to the extermination of 600 to 800 thousand Jews. From 190 to 300 ghettos were created on the territory of the republic. The Minsk, Grodno, Pinsk, Bobruisk and other ghettos became symbols of the tragedy of the Jewish people. The death camps of Trostenets and Koldychevo, as well as hundreds of other places of extermination. In many ghettos, underground patriotic groups and organizations operated. The resistance of prisoners took various forms: distributing leaflets, sabotage, diversions, collecting intelligence information, organizing escapes, providing economic and financial assistance to centers of the underground and partisan movement, training and joining partisan detachments, rescuing ghetto inhabitants. Jews were not only ordinary partisans, but also leaders and organizers of the partisan movement, commanders, commissars and chiefs of staff of partisan brigades, detachments and regiments. Jewish partisan detachments operated. The exhibition presents unique documents from the archival funds of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus: a list of the personnel of the Belsky detachment in the Baranovichi region, a report by political instructor N.Ya.Kiselev to the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (bolsheviks) of Belarus P.K.Ponomarenko on the withdrawal of civilians to the enemy rear, an award sheet for Nikolai Yakovlevich Kiselev and an order for the BShPD on awarding N.Ya.Kiselev for saving Jews, memoirs of a member of the Minsk party underground Maizles Yenta Peisakhovna about the struggle of a group of communists living in the Minsk ghetto, a list of underground workers in the Minsk ghetto who died fighting the German occupiers, a survey protocol of a resident of the village of M.Trostinets N.S.Runtseva about the atrocities of the fascists, acts of sabotage carried out by the Belsky partisan detachment, a separate partisan detachment named after M.I.Kalinin, Baranovichi Region, information from the command of the partisan detachment named after S.Ordzhonikidze on the organization of the Jewish partisan detachment of Belsky and other documents.
 |
| 1. Documentary exhibition «Tragedy and heroism of the Jews of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War» |
 |
 |
| 2-3. Documents of the NARB and photographs of the BGAKFFD at the exhibition |
 |
 |
| 4-5. Deputy Director of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus S.V. Kulinok introduces the banner exhibition to the meeting participants |
 |
 |
| 6-7. Head of the department of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus M.A. Starostenko introduces the documentary exhibition to the meeting participants |
 |
| 8. Meeting participants get acquainted with archival documents at the exhibition |