Maly Trostenets extermination camp, Minsk

[robin morley]

On my recent trip to Belarus I took the opportunity to visit Maly Trostenets extermination camp in the outskirts of Minsk. The camp was initially established during the summer of 1941 in a soviet collective farm to house POW's captured during the initial period of operation Barbarossa. The purpose of the camp changed on 10 may 1942 when with the arrival of jews from Austria, Germany and Czechoslovakia it became a Vernichtungslager and continued to act as such until October 1943 when most of the Jews from the Minsk ghetto had been killed there.

Administered by Unterscharführer Heinrich Eiche the camp was visited early after opening and whilst used as a POW camp by Heinrich Himmler.

There were no killing facilities on site inmates being killed on arrival by being shot or placed in 'gas vans' for the short journey from the rail head to the camp. Original estimates by the Soviet authorities give a killed figure of 200, 000 - 500,000 however historians such as Yad Vashem now give a figure of about 65000.

On the approach of Soviet forces in June 1944 the victims were dug up and incinerated by the remaining inmates and local villagers who were then killed themselves and the camp was destroyed under sonderaktion 1005 to hide evidence. In subsequent investigation the Soviets found the locations of 34 grave pits.

Little remains of the camp today apart from a avenue of poplar trees planted either side of the camps main access drive and the foundations of some camp buildings.

Memorial depicting entry gates.






Sentry box, original gate and box for removing ashes.






Cover from crematorium oven.


Original photo's of the camp, camp gates and members of the Soviet investigation committee.







Memorial on the site where final prisoners and witnesses involved in exhumation of bodies and destruction of camp were shot placed in a barn just outside the camp gates and burnt.



Remains of building where prisoners belongings were sorted.



Memorial from 1970,s



Another view of camp buildings.



The line of Poplars planted by the Germans.The two plinths indicate the position of the camp gates.

[harryamb2]

thank you Robin good pics.

[hassiman]

Boggles the mind. I highly recommend the documentary "Engineering Evil" made in cooperation with the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.
One of the best I have seen. 2 hours. Just on the AMC channel last night.

[CARL]

Well presented Robin, thank you.

Благовщина and Шашковка (Blagovshchina and Shashkovka), two forests located near to the camp, were used as killing sites - many victims were killed at these locations prior to even reaching the camp and its mobile extermination facilities - this is one of the main reasons for the difficulties when addressing estimated numbers of victims and patently, why figures are so far apart. Every single record of the camp is also said to have been destroyed.

The dozens of pits mentioned earlier varied in size, with some as long as 50 metres in length and several metres deep.

Typically, few of the perpetrators were punished for their crimes post war but several overseers of the Sonderkommando, including Otto Drews and Max Krahner, were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Hamburg court in 1968. Heinrich Eiche fled to Argentina and vanished, never to be found.

Carl

[Wagriff]

Interesting info. I would, though, be more inclined to lean towards the Yad Vashem figures rather than the Soviet. Locals always seem to over estimate. The Yad Vashem researchers are extremely precise and diligent in their tireless work to document the atrocities. The true death tolls will likely never be known exactly, but it still doesnt lessen the horror and outrage that took place with, apparently, the full cooperation of the local population. So many of the uncaptured perpetrators with blood on their hands went to their graves with, hopefully, a heavy conscious.

[FALLSCHIRMJAGER]

Thank you Robin for this informative thread and fine pictures. A truly terrible camp amongst so many others just like it. Leon.