Jews in Belarus mourned their thousands of Holocaust victims at a memorial in Brest.
German SS troops razed a ghetto in this town on the border with Poland 65 years ago.
Israel’s ambassador to Belarus and representatives of the Polish Consulate General, Byelorussian Union of Jewish Communities and other public organizations took part in the memorial.
The Brest ghetto, with 34,000 residents, was the largest in what was then known as Byelorussia. Some 26,000 of its residents were killed by German SS troops in the fall of 1942. The Nazis killed 50,000 Jews during four years of occupation of this western republic of the former Soviet Union.
During World War II, Byelorussian Jews who managed to escape from ghettos created guerrilla units and fought against the German occupation.
Meanwhile, 15 gravestones in a Jewish cemetery were vandalized in the Belarusan town of Bobruysk, according to reports on Oct. 17. Anti-Semitic graffiti and a swastika were painted on the cemetery gates.
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.
