The Minsk Ghetto: Soviet-Jewish Partisans Against the Nazis

by Hersh Smolar

The author, a leader of the Jewish resistance, recounts how the Nazi forces created a Jewish ghetto in Minsk.

Genres: Holocaust, Nonfiction

175 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1989

Reviews

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I profiled Hersh Smolar in a guest entry on the Executed Today blog.

What Marek Edelman's The Ghetto Fights was to the Warsaw Ghetto and Chaika Grossman's The Underground Army was to the Bialystok Ghetto, Hersh Smolar's book is to Minsk. Already in his mid-thirties by the time the war began, he was one of the principal leaders of the Jewish resistance in Minsk. This resistance movement has been unjustly neglected and it was really quite substantial, focusing not only on fighting the Nazis but also rescuing Jewish noncombatants such as children, old people, etc. Some 10,000 Minsk Jews were able to escape the ghetto into the nearby forests.

Smolar isn't writing about himself, but rather the movement in general, in a matter-of-fact tone with no flourishes. He concludes the book with some troubling stories about post-war Soviet anti-Semitism; even in the forests, anti-Semetic partisans sometimes shot their fellow Jewish fighters for no reason.

This might be good to read alongside books on the Bielski partisan group, which was also from Belarus; the Bielskis are mentioned in passing in Smolar's account.

[Ellie Midwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Minsk Ghetto” is an excellent research source for everyone interested in the history of the Minsk ghetto, the Byelorussian partisan movement, and the Holocaust in occupied parts of the Soviet Union. Hersh Smolar is the only survivor of the very first underground movement formed in Minsk and therefore his memoir is invaluable as a research source. The first version of it was written right after the liberation of Minsk and Byelorussia, while his memory of the events was still fresh; however, it will take years before the story will see the light due to the policy of the post-war Soviet Union. Chapter by chapter, Smolar follows the fate of the Minsk Jews starting with the German invasion and the erection of the ghetto itself. The first massacres and the atrocities of the SS are all described in their brutal vividness, then - the formation of the first partisan units and finally, the liquidation of the ghetto and the dreadful aftermath. Smolar’s story, as well as the story of his fallen comrades, isn’t an easy one and I was particularly upset to learn about the treatment of the surviving Jews in the post-war Soviet Union; however, it’s a memoir which carries a tremendous historical value and is a must-read for everyone interested in the subject.

[Mateusz Kołota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hersz Smolar w książce „Mińskie getto” nie tworzy literackiej fikcji – pisze historię, którą przeżył i której był częścią. To poruszające świadectwo życia, oporu i śmierci w jednym z mniej znanych, ale dramatycznych gett na wschodzie – w Mińsku.

Choć autor unika patosu i nie skupia się na sobie, to właśnie z jego relacji wyłania się obraz odważnego, skromnego człowieka, który współtworzył podziemny ruch oporu w miejscu, gdzie nadzieja była luksusem. Smolar pokazuje, że Żydzi nie byli tylko biernymi ofiarami Zagłady, ale także ludźmi gotowymi na walkę, sabotaż, ratunek innych – często za cenę życia.

Ta książka rozprawia się z bolesnym mitem o żydowskiej bierności, który przetrwał dekady – także po wojnie, także w Polsce. Dla wielu to była lektura dająca siłę, tożsamość i dumę w świecie pełnym antysemickich stereotypów.

„Mińskie getto” to nie tylko pamięć o jednym miejscu – to głos wszystkich zapomnianych bohaterów, o których historia często milczy. Prosta, mocna i prawdziwa – lektura obowiązkowa dla każdego, kto chce zrozumieć historię Zagłady i ludzi, którzy mieli odwagę się jej przeciwstawić.