Abstract
The article is devoted to the little-studied topic of concealing the traces of Nazi mass crimes on the territory of Belarus, in the period from the spring of 1942 to the liberation of the Republic in the summer of 1944. "Operation 1005" is the code name of a top-secret large-scale operation, carried out by Nazi Germany in order to hide the traces of mass killings committed in Europe during World War II. Citing numerous examples of the cities, regions and areas of Belarus, the author reveals the mechanism used by the Nazis for concealing the consequences of mass murders, names the initiators of these crimes, the executioners and their accomplices. The article has been written on the basis of documentary materials found in various archives, which have been supplemented by the testimony of witnesses of those events, that allowed the author to show the general and the particular, and to draw the necessary conclusions.
Highlights
During the Second World War, in the region of Belorussia, the Nazis established over 260 SS and SD forced-labor and internment camps, prisons, penal colonies, and transit camps and colonies for women and children [Mikhnuk 1995: 295]
From the pre-war population of 10,000,000 over 1,500,000 civilians and nearly 800,000 Red Army war prisoners perished in the occupied territory of Belorussia [Spravochnik o mestakh prinuditel’nogo soderzhaniya grazhdanskogo naselenia na okkupirovannykh territoriyakh Belarusi, 1941–1944 2001]
The commissions were made up of officers of squadron commander level and higher and several other military personnel including rank and file soldiers. They interviewed the local people who openly described the facts of the devastation of the Jewish population; by contrast, the records produced for civilian authorities most often referred to the Jews as “Soviet civilians”
Summary
During the Second World War, in the region of Belorussia (in the territory of modern-day Belarus), the Nazis established over 260 SS and SD forced-labor and internment camps, prisons, penal colonies, and transit camps and colonies for women and children [Mikhnuk 1995: 295]. From the pre-war population of 10,000,000 over 1,500,000 civilians and nearly 800,000 Red Army war prisoners perished in the occupied territory of Belorussia [Spravochnik o mestakh prinuditel’nogo soderzhaniya grazhdanskogo naselenia na okkupirovannykh territoriyakh Belarusi, 1941–1944 2001]. The Nazi leadership used brutal methods to attain certain practical objectives, and to punish or intimidate. They insisted on absolute execution of orders, punished dissenters, prevented pockets of resistance in their midst, and deprived partisans of support by destroying their sources of supply
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