• Memorial to the Jews of the Lida Ghetto
In the Belarusian city of Lida, several memorials remember the murdered Jews of the ghetto that existed there from 1941 to 1943.
Image: Lida, undated, Market place with synagogue, public domain
Lida, undated, Market place with synagogue, public domain

Image: Lida, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of May 8, 1942, Stiftung Denkmal
Lida, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of May 8, 1942, Stiftung Denkmal
Lida, located in western Belarus near the border to Lithuania, belonged to Poland from 1921 to 1939. About one third of the 19,000 inhabitants were Jews, the remainder were Poles and Belarusians. In autumn 1939 the Soviet Union incorporated eastern Poland, including Lida.
When German troops occupied Lida at the end of June 1941, there were approximately 7,500 Jews in the city. Only a few days later, members of Einsatzgruppe B (mobile killing unit) murdered several members of the town's educated elites, among them many Jews but also mentally ill people from two neighbouring places.
In September 1941 the Germans set up ghettos on three different sites to which all Jews from Lida and surroundings had to move. They had to conduct forced labour. After some Jews were accused of attacking an Orthodox priest in March 1942, all the inhabitants of the ghetto had to gather in the market square and surrender their valuables. Members of the German constabulary shot 40 Jews straight on the square, while policemen murdered about 200 Jews who had remained in the ghetto because they were ill in their homes. On May 7, 1942 the Gebietskommisar (District Commissioner) in Lida, Hermann Hanweg and his deputy Leopold Windisch, ordered the 1,500 to 2,000 Jews considered fit for work to be separated from the others. The next day Lithuanian and Latvian policemen surrounded the ghetto and drove the remaining 5,670 Jews to the Borowka Forest, where they murdered them together with members of the German Security Police (SiPo). After this »Großaktion« Jews from other places were taken to the Lida Ghetto, which now consisted of approximately 4,000 Jewish prisoners. Soon a resistance group emerged, which mainly organised outbreaks from the ghetto. A few hundred Jews managed to flee to the partisans, but the majority of the Jews living in the ghetto was shot in spring of 1943. In September of the same year the ghetto was dissolved and the Jews still alive were deported to other camps.
Image: Lida, undated, Market place with synagogue, public domain
Lida, undated, Market place with synagogue, public domain

Image: Lida, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of May 8, 1942, Stiftung Denkmal
Lida, 2004, Monument to the victims of the mass shooting of May 8, 1942, Stiftung Denkmal
A few days after the occupation of the city German units shot about 20 Jews under the pretext that they had been Communists. At the beginning of July 1941, members of Einsatzgruppe B (mobile killing unit) shot about 92 intellectuals in the court of the prison. A few days later, some 120 mentally ill people were shot and killed in nearby hospitals in Malykovshchina and Minojty. At the beginning of March 1942 the Germans shot about 35 Jews in the city prison, mainly refugees from Vilnius, a city only 100 kilometres away. In the same month, the Germans carried out the first »Großaktion« in which they murdered over 200 Jews. During the second »Großaktion« on May 8, 1942, German Security Police (SiPo) and their Lithuanian and Latvian helpers shot and killed 5,670 Jews in the Borovka Forest on western outskirts of Lida. After the »Großaktion« about 1,500 Jews remained in the ghetto. They were joined by Jews who had been deported to Lida to conduct forced labour, so that the number of Jews in the ghetto grew to approximately 4,000. In early March 1943, the Germans and their accomplices shot more than 2,000 Jews on the outskirts of the city, south of the shooting site in the Borovka Forest. On September 18, 1943 the Germans finally dissolved the ghetto. By then, hundreds of Jews had managed to flee to the Naliboki Forest where they joined partisan units. The remaining Jews were deported to the Majdanek concentration camp and the Sobibór extermination camp in occupied Poland. In total, German units and their accomplices murdered at least 6,700 Jews in Lida.
Image: Lida, 1941, Scene from the ghetto, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny
Lida, 1941, Scene from the ghetto, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny

Image: Lida, 2011, Memorial on the former Jewish cemetery, Vadim Akopyan
Lida, 2011, Memorial on the former Jewish cemetery, Vadim Akopyan
About 300 Jews from Lida survived the Holocaust. The Red Army reconquered the city on July 8, 1944. In 1967, relatives placed a granite slab into the ground at the site of the mass shooting of 8 May 1942, on which a Russian inscription remembers the victims. New memorials were added in the 1990s. One was set up by the Jewish community together with an association of former Jewish citizens of Lida. It is a composition of metal statues standing on a marble pedestal. The Russian and Hebrew inscriptions on the commemorative plaques reads: »1942-1992. 6,700 citizens of the city of Lida are buried in this mass grave, tortured to death by German Fascists«. In 2003 another granite memorial was erected next to the memorials. In the same year, the Jewish community in Lida had 111 members. Five citizens of Lida received the award »Righteous among the Nations« by the State of Israel. Every year on May 8, a memorial service in memory of the victims is held in Lida.
Image: Lida, 2011, Memorial erected in 2002, Vadim Akopyan
Lida, 2011, Memorial erected in 2002, Vadim Akopyan

Image: Lida, 2011, The memorial at the mass grave known as the »children's grave«, erected in 1997 and renovated in the 2010s, Avner
Lida, 2011, The memorial at the mass grave known as the »children's grave«, erected in 1997 and renovated in the 2010s, Avner
Name
Pamjatnik 6.700 evrejam lidskogo ghetto
Address
Krasnoarmeyskaya Ulitsa
231292 Lida
Web
https://www.lidaholocaustfoundation.org/
E-Mail
Info@LidaHolocaustFoundation.org
Open
The memorials are accessible at all times.
Possibilities
Every year on May 8 a memorial service is held in memory of the murdered Jews.