• Memorial to the Ghetto Heroes and Memorial to the Great Synagogue in Białystok
On August 1, 1941, the German military administration established a ghetto in Białystok - a city which is today located in the north-east of Poland, on the border to Belarus - for approximately 50,000 Jews from the city and surrounding areas. Over time, the Jewish inmates of the ghetto were deported to various extermination and labour camps, until the ghetto was finally dismantled. Today, several monuments commemorate the Jewish victims from Białystok, most notably the Memorial to the Great Synagogue, erected in 1995 to commemorate the 2,000 Jews who were locked into the synagogue and burnt alive on the first day of German occupation.
Image: Białystok, undated, Colourised historical picture of the Great Synagogue, Tomasz Wisniewski
Białystok, undated, Colourised historical picture of the Great Synagogue, Tomasz Wisniewski

Image: Białystok, 2007, Memorial to the Great Synagogue, Regionalny Oddział PTTK, Łukasz Wołyniec
Białystok, 2007, Memorial to the Great Synagogue, Regionalny Oddział PTTK, Łukasz Wołyniec
Białystok had a population of 107,000 before the Second World War, with Jews constituting over half. Following the German invasion of Poland, Białystok was occupied on September 15, 1939. A few days later, the Soviet army invaded Poland from the east and occupied large parts of the country - in accordance with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact - including Białystok. When the German Reich breached the treaty on June 22, 1941, by invading the Soviet Union, Białystok was yet again occupied by Wehrmacht units. In order to create »Lebensraum« for Germany, the »District of Białystok«, established in August 1941, was to be exploited economically, with the local population deployed in labour until it would be resettled or murdered. From the very beginning of the German occupation on June 27, 1941, SS mobile killings units, various police battalions, units of the Security Police and Wehrmacht murdered Jews in the region. Already on the first day, members of police battalion 309 locked about 2,000 Jews in the Great Synagogue and set fire to the building, killing everyone inside. At the beginning of August 1941, the German military administration established a ghetto for 50,000 Jews. Ephraim Barasz - the chair of the Judenrat, which was installed by the Germans - made the ghetto into an important textile production site in the hope of protecting the Jews who were deployed in labour.
In mid-July 1943, it was decided that the ghetto would be dissolved. This was partly due to the developments on the eastern front and partly because of an increase of Russian partisan activities in the region. All of the factories located in the ghetto were to be moved to Lublin. Soldiers, policemen and an SS auxiliary unit surrounded the ghetto on August 16, 1943. They were met with the resistance of about 200 members of the underground, who organised an uprising. The struggle was short-lived. After the revolt had been suppressed, the SS deported about 30,000 Jews to extermination and labour camps.
Image: Białystok, undated, Colourised historical picture of the Great Synagogue, Tomasz Wisniewski
Białystok, undated, Colourised historical picture of the Great Synagogue, Tomasz Wisniewski

Image: Białystok, 2007, Memorial to the Great Synagogue, Regionalny Oddział PTTK, Łukasz Wołyniec
Białystok, 2007, Memorial to the Great Synagogue, Regionalny Oddział PTTK, Łukasz Wołyniec
Between June and September 1941, in the first months of the German occupation, about 31,000 Jews were murdered in the district of Białystok - most of them died in mass shootings. In Białystok alone 4,000 Jews perished. From October 1942 on, the numerous ghettos of the »Bezirk Bialystok« were rapidly dismantled, only the Białystok ghetto remained in operation for longer. In February 1943, over 10,000 Jews were deported from Białystok to Auschwitz and Treblinka. About 1,000 Jews were shot in the ghetto.
When the ghetto was liquidated in August 1943, some 17,000 to 19,000 Jews were deported to the Sobibór, Treblinka and Auschwitz death camps and murdered there, including 1,264 children who were deported to Auschwitz via Theresienstadt in Bohemia. 11,000 other Jews were forcibly taken to labour camps in Lublin. Most of them were shot there by policemen and members of the SS in the course of »Aktion Erntefest« (»Operation Harvest Festival«), a mass murder that took place on November 3/4, 1943. The final dissolution of the ghetto took place on September 16, 1943. Between 1,200 and 2,000 Jews were deported to Majdanek, where they too fell victim to »Aktion Erntefest«. Only about 300 to 400 Jews from Białystok lived to see the end of the war.
Image: Białystok, undated, View of the burned out Great Synagogue, deathcamps.org
Białystok, undated, View of the burned out Great Synagogue, deathcamps.org

Image: Białystok, 2007, Memorial to the Ghetto Heroes, Regionalny Oddział PTTK, Łukasz Wołyniec
Białystok, 2007, Memorial to the Ghetto Heroes, Regionalny Oddział PTTK, Łukasz Wołyniec
The Memorial to the Ghetto Heroes (Polish: Pomnik Bohaterów Getta) was erected not long after the end of the war. It commemorates the participants of the uprising in the Białystok ghetto. In 1993, the memorial was restored on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the uprising. A further memorial was unveiled in 1995: Białystok Jews from all over the world as well as the city council donated the Memorial to the Great Synagogue (Polish: Pomnik Wielkiej Synagogi). It is dedicated also to the memory of the 2,000 Jews who were burnt alive inside the synagogue on June 27, 1941.
Both memorials are part of the »Jewish Heritage Trail« (Polish: Szlak Dziedzictwa Żydowskiego w Białymstoku). In 2008, a group of students and doctoral candidates from the University of Białystok as well as volunteers developed a project on the Jewish history of Białystok from 1685 to 1945, marking all the relevant sites on a map of the city.
Image: Białystok, 2006, Memorial to the Great Synagogue, Podlaska Regionalna Organizacja Turystyczna
Białystok, 2006, Memorial to the Great Synagogue, Podlaska Regionalna Organizacja Turystyczna

Image: Białystok, 2006, Plaques in memory of the Great Synagogue and of the Jews murdered in the fire, Podlaska Regionalna Organizacja Turystyczna
Białystok, 2006, Plaques in memory of the Great Synagogue and of the Jews murdered in the fire, Podlaska Regionalna Organizacja Turystyczna
Name
Pomnik Bohaterów Getta i Pomnik Wielkiej Synagogi w Białymstoku
Address
Ul. Żabia and ul. Suraska / ul. Legionowa respectively
15-062 Białystok
Open
The memorials are accessible at all times.