• Memorial to the murdered Jews of Iwye
Near the small town of Iwye (Belarusian: Iŭje, Polish: Iwie), two memorials commemorate the Jews who were murdered there in 1941 and 1942 in mass shootings. In the town there are several memorial stones on the site of the former ghetto which remember the history of the town, including the history of the Jewish community and the destruction of the ghetto.
Image: Iwye, about 1918, Marketplace with German soldiers during the WWI, public domain
Iwye, about 1918, Marketplace with German soldiers during the WWI, public domain

Image: Iwye, 2012, Memorial at the shooting site, Vadim Akopyan
Iwye, 2012, Memorial at the shooting site, Vadim Akopyan
Iwye, situated on the banks of Iwyanka, was first mentioned by name at the beginning of the 15th century. Jews settled there from the 16th century. In addition to Belarussians and Jews, Muslim Tatars also lived in the town. At the end of the 19th century there were two synagogues and three Jewish prayer houses in the town. In the interwar period, Iwye belonged to Poland until the region was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939 following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. On the eve of the Second World War 3,000 of the approximately 4,000 inhabitants were Jews. The town had the character of a Jewish shtetl.
The German Wehrmacht occupied the town on June 29, 1941. A few days later, members of the SS ordered all middle-aged Jewish men to gather on the market square. 220 Jewish intellectuals were driven towards the village of Stonevitshi two kilometres west of Iwye and shot them there. In September 1941, all Jews were forced to move to a closed ghetto in the western part of Iwye. On May 12, 1942 a Gestapo unit raided the ghetto and ordered all Jews to gather on the market square. There the deputy district commissioner Leopold Windisch supervised the selection: Jews who were considered fit to work were allowed to remain alive for the moment. All other Jews, about 2,500 men, women and children, were driven to Stonevitshi by German and Lithuanian units and shot there. After the »Großaktion« approximately 50 Jews from the ghetto were drafted to bury the corpses. Some Jews managed to escape to the partisans in the woods. All those who remained in the ghetto were deported to forced labour camps in Barysaw at the beginning of 1943. The ghetto was thus dissolved and there were no Jews left in Iwye.
Image: Iwye, about 1918, Marketplace with German soldiers during the WWI, public domain
Iwye, about 1918, Marketplace with German soldiers during the WWI, public domain

Image: Iwye, 2012, Memorial at the shooting site, Vadim Akopyan
Iwye, 2012, Memorial at the shooting site, Vadim Akopyan
On August 2, 1941 members of the SS shot about 220 Jewish men. The remaining Jews of the town were rounded up in a ghetto. By April 1942 the number had risen to approximately to 4,000 owing to Jews from the surrounding area. They became defenceless victims of the serious harassments of the Germans and their helpers. In the spring of 1942, for example, many died on a senseless mission carrying a tank to the village of Yuratishki, 14 kilometres away. Anyone who collapsed on the way was shot on the spot.
On May 12, 1942 a Gestapo unit shot approximately 2,500 Jews from the ghetto near the village of Stonevitshi . According to the post-war and not always accurate reports of the Soviet Special Investigation Commission, German units murdered 2,621 Jews in Iwye.
Image: Iwye, about 1900, Former Synagogue, public domain
Iwye, about 1900, Former Synagogue, public domain

Image: Iwye, 2012, Memorial at the shooting site, Vadim Akopyan
Iwye, 2012, Memorial at the shooting site, Vadim Akopyan
The Red Army liberated Iwye on July 8, 1944. Only a few Jews from Iwye survived the war. In 1957 a memorial stone was erected near the village of Stonevichi in memory of the victims of the mass shooting. The fact that the victims were Jews remained unmentioned. Every year a commemoration ceremony in memory of the murdered Jews of Iwye takes place there.
Another monument was erected in the village of Stonevichi in 1989. Lines of the Soviet poet Aron Vergelis, who wrote in Yiddish, are engraved on it. Today there are Catholic, Russian Orthodox and Muslim houses of prayer in the town but no synagogue. Three former synagogue buildings are still preserved, but they are used for other purposes. A small plaque on one of the buildings, which now houses a sports club, remembers the Jewish history of the building. The former synagogues are on the way from the Orthodox Church to the Market Square. There are also the remains of the Jewish cemetery, which for the most part is built-over and dilapidated. In 2013 the town erected a memorial »The Wheel of History« in the immediate vicinity of the cemetery, which narrates 14 events of the town's history on 14 memorial stones inscribed in Belarusian. They also remember Iwyes Jewish community and the ghetto that was there from October 1941 to January 1943. In the town many houses from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, formerly inhabited by Jewish families, are still preserved. An exhibition in the »Museum of National Cultures« covers the Jewish history of Iwye.
Image: Iwye, undated, The building of a former Great Synagogue is now home to a sports club, jewish-tour.com
Iwye, undated, The building of a former Great Synagogue is now home to a sports club, jewish-tour.com

Image: Iwye, undated, »Wheel of History«, ivyenews.by
Iwye, undated, »Wheel of History«, ivyenews.by
Image: Iwye, 2012, Memorial at the shooting site, Vadim Akopyan
Iwye, 2012, Memorial at the shooting site, Vadim Akopyan
Image: Iwye, 2004, Houses of the former Shtetl, Jewish Heritage Research Group
Iwye, 2004, Houses of the former Shtetl, Jewish Heritage Research Group
Image: Iwye, undated, Plaque on a former synagogue, jewish-tour.com
Iwye, undated, Plaque on a former synagogue, jewish-tour.com
Image: Iwye, undated, Memorial of Religions, ivyenews.by
Iwye, undated, Memorial of Religions, ivyenews.by
Name
Mемориальный комплекс в память ивьевских евреев — жертв Xолокоста
Open
The memorials are accessible at all times.