Ragged and starving Jewish children ranging in age from three to seven years were auctioned off by the Germans at an improvised slave block set up in the railway station at Minsk, a Russian correspondent reports quoting non-Jewish villagers in the Minsk district.
Since those children who were not “sold” were left to starve, peasant women bought as may as they could afford at prices of from 20 to 50 marks (nominally eight to 20 dollars). Unsold children cried bitterly and begged passers-by to purchase them, Maria Gotovoska, a worker at the Minsk radio plant, told the correspondent. Children purchased at the Minsk slave mart were found in the homes of many of the peasants when the region was liberated.
The youngsters who were placed on sale, the correspondent was told, were the survivors of thousands seized by the Nazis from the villages to which they had been sent just prior to the fall of Minsk. Large numbers were gassed to death in portable asphyxiation chambers and many died from cold and hunger.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
