In the Chashniksky district they honored the memory of the victims of the Holocaust
“The tragic February of 1942, when the fascist invaders brutally massacred almost two thousand civilians, is forever inscribed in the historical memory of the Chashniksky district,” Chairman of the District Executive Committee Alexander Bykov addressed those present. “More than 80 years have passed, but this place still retains the horror and pain that innocent people experienced.
On the eve of the war, from 2 to 3 thousand of the 3.5 thousand residents of Chashnik were Jews. They did not even imagine the scale of fascist anti-Semitism. About 10% of Jews managed to evacuate. For the rest, the occupation became a time of suffering, deprivation, lack of rights, humiliation, and then complete physical destruction.
Since the Jews lived compactly in the center of the village, they were left in their own houses. This part of the regional center became a ghetto. It was of an “open type”: Jews were not allowed to leave it, but the territory was not fenced. The prisoners were ordered to sew yellow patches on their clothes on the chest and back, and to wear white stripes of fabric with a yellow star on their sleeves.
Jews were forced to do the most difficult physical labor, often used instead of horses. In the fall, famine began in the ghetto. At the beginning of February 1942, the Germans led about 200 men of working age towards Zarechnaya Sloboda and shot them on the bridge over the Ulyanka River. A few days later, on February 14 (according to other sources, 11 or 13) the Germans sent a large group of Jewish youth to clear the road of snow near the village of Koptevichi. Those who remained were ordered to gather at the district House of Culture. From there they were taken in three columns to a sand pit and shot. The wounded also fell into the pit, and small children were thrown alive. Then the quarry was buried and the ground was rolled with an armored vehicle. More than 1,800 ghetto prisoners were brutally executed.
