Metadata: Belorussian Republican Commission to Assist the Work of the Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) to Investigate and Ascertain the Crimes of the German-Fascist Invaders and Assess the Damages Caused by Them in the Belorussian SSR to Public Organizations and State Enterprises and Institutions of the USSR
Collection
- Country:
- Belarus
- Holding institution:
- National Archives of the Republic of Belarus
- Holding institution (official language):
- Национальный архив Республики Беларусь
- Postal address:
- 220114, Nezavisimosti Ave. 116, Minsk, Belarus
- Phone number:
- +375 (17) 351-05-12
- Web address:
- https://narb.by/be
- Email:
- narb@narb.by
- Reference number:
- F. 845
- Title:
- Belorussian Republican Commission to Assist the Work of the Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) to Investigate and Ascertain the Crimes of the German-Fascist Invaders and Assess the Damages Caused by Them in the Belorussian SSR to Public Organizations and State Enterprises and Institutions of the USSR
- Title (official language):
- БЕЛОРУССКАЯ РЕСПУБЛИКАНСКАЯ КОМИССИЯ СОДЕЙСТВИЯ В РАБОТЕ ЧРЕЗВЫЧАЙНОЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЙ КОМИССИИ (ЧГК) ПО РАССЛЕДОВАНИЮ И УСТАНОВЛЕНИЮ ЗЛОДЕЯНИЙ НЕМЕЦКО-ФАШИСТСКИХ ЗАХВАТЧИКОВ И УЧЕТУ ПРИЧИНЕННОГО ИМИ УЩЕРБА ПО БЕЛОРУССКОЙ ССР ОБЩЕСТВЕННЫМ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЯМ, ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫМ ПРЕДПРИЯТИЯМ И УЧРЕЖДЕНИЯМ СССР
- Creator/accumulator:
- Belorussian Republican Commission to Assist the Work of the Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) to Investigate and Ascertain the Crimes of the German-Fascist Invaders and Assess the Damages Caused by Them in the Belorussian SSR to Public Organizations and State Enterprises and Institutions of the USSR
- Date(s):
- 1941/1995
- Language:
- Russian
- German
- Extent:
- 245 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Scope and content:
- The fond contains a broad range of evidentiary materials pertaining to the crimes committed against the Jewish population of Belorussia, including a set of documents on the Nazis’ and their accomplices’ destruction of Belorussian Jews during the occupation, in particular, documentation of investigations conducted at mass burial sites in the Baranovichi, Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Gomel’, Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev, Molodechno, Polesskaia, and Polotsk regions (1943-44); documents, minutes of witness interrogations, questionnaire forms, lists of Nazi war criminals and their accomplices, and orders, directives, and reports of the German command regarding the organizing of Jewish ghettos and death camps in Belorussia and aktionen (“actions”) conducted to exterminate the Jewish population, including registration logs and prisoner lists from the Ozarichi (1943-45) and Trostenets (1944) death camps; originals of German documents from 1941-44, including orders, instructions, directives, circulars, dispatch reports, and telephonograms regarding the hundreds of trains used to transport Jews from Nazi-occupied countries of Europe to be exterminated in Minsk and other locations in Belorussia (1969); albums of photographs documenting atrocities committed by the Nazi occupiers in the BSSR (1945); etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Extraordinary State Commission to Investigate and Ascertain the Crimes of the German-Fascist Invaders and their Accomplices and the Damages Caused by Them to Citizens, Collective Farms, Public Organizations, and State Enterprises and Institutions of the USSR was established by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 2 November 1942. It was tasked with collecting and verifying documentary data and preparing materials on crimes committed by the Nazi occupiers and the damages caused to Soviet citizens, collective farms, and the state in the course of the occupation of part of Soviet territory by forces of Nazi Germany and its allies. Toward this end, the Extraordinary State Commission kept records of the violence and killings perpetrated by German forces and their accomplices against civilians, and analyzed the damages caused by the invasion and subsequent actions of the Nazis in Soviet territory.
On 16 March 1943, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR directed that, to support the operations of the union-level Extraordinary State Commission, a Belorussian republic-level commission to assist it be established, as well as twelve regional commissions in the BSSR, in the Bobruisk, Brest, Baranovichi, Vitebsk, Gomel’, Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev, Molodechno, Pinsk, Polesskaia, and Polotsk regions. The Belorussian Republican Commission was chaired by the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia, and its members included representatives of ministries and departments; serving as its secretary was the head of the legal department of the BSSR Council of People’s Commissars. The commission organized an apparatus consisting of an executive secretary and inspectors tasked with assessing the crimes and damages perpetrated by the Nazi invaders. Per a ruling (5 October 1944) of the BSSR Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia, the commission’s primary goal was to make a detailed and accurate accounting of the crimes and damages perpetrated by the invaders so as to be able to present them with an invoice for reparations. Many of the materials collected were used at the Nuremberg trials, and at trials held in Minsk, Gomel’, Bobruisk, etc., and were deemed indisputable evidence in cases against war criminals. The Belorussian Republican Commission to Assist the Extraordinary State Commission ceased operations in September 1945.
- Access points: locations:
- Baranovichi
- Bobruisk
- Gomel’
- Grodno
- Minsk
- Mogilev
- Molodechno
- Polotsk
- Trostenets
- Vitebsk
- System of arrangement:
- The fond includes a single inventory systematized chronologically, and within particular years, by document type or subject.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
