Miory ( be, Мёры; russian: Миоры; lt, Mėrai; pl, Miory) is a town in
Vitebsk Region
Vitebsk Region or Vitebsk Oblast or Viciebsk Voblasts ( be, Ві́цебская во́бласць, ''Viciebskaja voblasć'', ; rus, Ви́тебская о́бласть, Vitebskaya oblast, ˈvʲitʲɪpskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a region ( oblas ...
,
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 ...
, and the administrative center of
Miory District.
History
The town was first mentioned in 1514.
Miory was occupied by Soviet forces in September 1939. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Soviet forces withdrew from the town, and local anti-Semites committed a
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
against the town's Jewish population, killing the rabbi, Dov Bear Pianco, and his wife. German forces occupied the town on 3 July 1941.
For the next three years until 4 July 1944, Miory was occupied by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
and administered as a part of ''
Generalbezirk Weißruthenien
Generalbezirk Weissruthenien (General District White Ruthenia) was one of the four administrative subdivisions of ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'', the 1941-1945 civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany for the administration of the th ...
'' of ''
Reichskommissariat Ostland''. A ghetto was set up in the town, and all Jews were kept imprisoned there. A
judenrat
A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every c ...
was established, led by businessman Zvi Hersch Hellman. The Jews of Miory were later joined by other Jews, who sneaked into the ghetto after fleeing other nearby towns. Prior to the war, the town had been home to 500 Jews, most of them agricultural workers or craftsmen. In October 1941, some young Jews from the ghetto were arrested by German forces and sentenced to death for "conspiracy against the German government", but the judenrat was able to stay the execution.
On 2 June 1942, Jews were ordered to gather in the square and were then taken into the forest in the direction of Krukówka village. The Germans killed 779 people in the forest. About 80 people, however managed to escape,
some of them going on to join a
partisan group. The final liquidation of the ghetto in Miory took place in December 1942. A monument was later built at the site of the 2 June massacre.
References
External links
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Disnensky Uyezd
Holocaust locations in Belarus
Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust
Miory District
Populated places in Vitebsk Region
Towns in Belarus
Vilnius Voivodeship
Wilno Voivodeship (1926–1939)
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