The Slutsk affair refers to the

massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

of thousands of

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and others that occurred in

Slutsk Slutsk ( officially transliterated as Sluck, be, Слуцк; russian: Слуцк; pl, Słuck, lt, Sluckas, Yiddish/Hebrew: סלוצק ''Slutsk'') is a city in Belarus, located on the Sluch River south of Minsk. As of 2022, its population i ...

, Byelorussia in the Soviet Union, in October 1941, near the city of

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

while under

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

occupation during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. The perpetrators were a combination of

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

special forces and Lithuanian allies of the Third Reich. Nearly 4,000 Jews were murdered over a two-day period along with thousands of non-Jews. The city of Slutsk had a large concentration of Jews as well as large numbers of Belarusians. Although the German government had previously signed a non-aggression pact (the

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union that enabled those powers to partition Poland between them. The pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ri ...

) with the Soviet Union, the Nazis, emboldened by success in western Europe, planned and executed

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

, and invaded their former ally on June 22, 1941. Along the way, the Nazis picked up a number of allies in satellite nations. On October 27, 1941, four

companies A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared go ...

of military police stationed in Kaunas entered the city with the assignment of liquidating the city's Jewish population within two days. This "special security operation" was led by the '' Einsatzgruppen'' (death squads) of the SS, and acted without authorization from the local German civil administration and Security SS authorities that had marshaled various specialized workers from the population. The Jews were surrounded, removed from their houses and killed ''en masse'', in such a frenzy that not just Jews, but also other people in the area were massacred. The German civil administration in Byelorussian was outraged, after having made great efforts to gain the favor of the local population in accordance with the instructions of the

Führer ( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or " guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader princip ...

. Commissioner General of White Ruthenia

Wilhelm Kube Wilhelm Kube (13 November 1887 – 22 September 1943) was a Nazi official and German politician. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the o ...

wrote in protest to his superior and to

Reichsführer-SS (, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-servi ...

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

: The letter concluded:

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

, by all accounts, was never notified of the incident and thereafter mistakenly believed that Nazi partisans among the Belarusian population would support the Germans in the continuing invasion.

External links

"The Murder of Soviet Jews"
* {{Authority control Belarus in World War II Holocaust massacres and pogroms The Holocaust in Belarus Jewish Belarusian history Slutsk Mass murder in 1941 October 1941 events

See also

References

External links