Damačava ( be, Дамачава; russian: Домáчево, Domachevo, pl, Domaczewo) is a

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

(

Brest District Brest District is an administrative subdivision, a raion of Brest Region, in Belarus. Its administrative center is Brest. Demographics At the time of the Belarus Census (2009), Brest District had a population of 39,426. Of these, 83.0% were of ...

, part of

Brest Region Brest Region or Brest Oblast or Brest Voblasts ( be, Брэ́сцкая во́бласць ''(Bresckaja vobłasć)''; russian: Бре́стская о́бласть (''Brestskaya Oblast)'') is one of the regions of Belarus. Its administrative cent ...

History

Within the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Li ...

, Damačava was part of

Brest Litovsk Voivodeship Brest Litovsk Voivodeship ( Belarusian: ''Берасьцейскае ваяводзтва'', Polish: ''Województwo brzeskolitewskie'') was a unit of administrative territorial division and a seat of local government (voivode) within the Grand ...

. In 1795, Damačava was acquired by the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

as a result of the

Third Partition of Poland The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polish ...

. From 1921 until 1939, Damačava (''Domaczewo'') was part of the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

. In September 1939, Damačava was occupied by the Red Army and, on 14 November 1939, incorporated into the

Byelorussian SSR The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белор� ...

. From 21 June 1941 until 23 July 1944, Damačava was occupied by Nazi Germany and administered as a part of the Generalbezirk Wolhynien-Podolien of

Reichskommissariat Ukraine During World War II, (abbreviated as RKU) was the civilian occupation regime () of much of Nazi German-occupied Ukraine (which included adjacent areas of modern-day Belarus and pre-war Second Polish Republic). It was governed by the Reich Min ...

. The majority of the town inhabitants were Jewish before World War II. From November 1941, the Jews were kept imprisoned in a

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...

. In September 1942 they were murdered in a mass execution.

Notable residents

Anthony Sawoniuk was a resident of Damačava who fled after murdering Jews during

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. Later working as a ticket collector in Britain, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 18 Jews in the United Kingdom's only war crimes trial.The Ticket Collector from Belarus - "An extraordinary and true story of the Holocaust and Britain' only war crimes trial - by Mike Anderson & Neil Hanson - 2021 - Simon & Schuster (publishers)

References

External links

* Urban-type settlements in Belarus Populated places in Brest Region Brest Litovsk Voivodeship Brestsky Uyezd Polesie Voivodeship Shtetls Holocaust locations in Poland Brest District Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust {{belarus-geo-stub