Holocaust in Belorussia [Page 314]
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[Page 314]

Dictionary of basic terms and names used

Translated by Irene Newhouse & Dr. Leonid Smilovitsky

Ainzatsgruppen (Ger. Einsatzgruppen) mobile military territorial subsections for the purpose of liquidating prisoners of war, Jews, and political opponents of the regime (Soviet functionaries and Communists) by means of burning the countryside and capturing people for work in Germany; formed from SS troops, security police and SD. Einsatzgruppe B, made up of Sonderkommando 7a and 7b followed the army group Zentrum and committed terrorist acts in Belarus and the Smolensk Region. After the German defeat, 22 Einsatzgruppen officers were tried before the American tribunal in Nuremberg, 14 defendants were condemned to death by execution, the others  to a term in prison.

Bank  A branch of the German state bank functioning in Baranovichi, Begomel, Vileika, Koidanovo, Logoisk, Pleshchenitsy, Slonim, Slutsk, Uzda. There were plans for branches in Gantsevichi, Glubokie, Lida and Novogrudok. In Minsk there was the Imperial Credit Union, some other money transfers between department branches of the state bank took place. Frequently the true owners responsible legalized the current account; in Riga the previously created community bank Ostland, some daughter branches of the Steel Community Bank of Belarus functioned at the same time as accounting houses for savings banks, cooperative central credit union, and local bank. Just in Eastern Belarus 47 banks and their branches as well as the Foreign Currency - Credit Union settled.

Belarusskaya Narodnaya Samopomoshch' - Belarussian People's Self-Help  Organization of philanthropic organizations for fighting off hunger, want, poverty, founded 21 October 1941 by order of V. Kube, playing important roll in the maintenance of police units, calling for collaboration with the Nazis, enlisting people to leave for work in Germany, in March 1943 limiting its activity to health matters and philanthropy; manager: I. Ermachenko (October 1941  April 1943), Yu. Sobolevskii (Jun 1943  February 1944).

Belorusskii Molodezhy Soyuz (SBM) Belarussian Youth Union  war-time organization founded 22 June 1943, on the basis of the model of the Gilteryugend (Hitler Jugend = Hitler Youth), training Belarussian youth for the war against the USSR and working in wartime enterprises for the Reich; by June 1944 there were SBM groups in 14 okrug [regions] and 56 rayon [districts] numbering 12,635 people aged 10 to 30, later discharged to the republic's successor activities for Belarussian youth from the German environment; Directors: G. Shul'ts, M. Gan'ko.

Belorusskii Kraevaya Oborona (BKO) Belarussian Regional Defense  formed during the war to fight partisans, established in February  March 1944 under the direction of Major F. Kushel on the basis that BKO mobilize 28,000 Belarussian residents of towns (48 battalions of 450-500 men each). The majority [of the recruits] being hostile to the occupying forces, the BKO did not acquit itself honorably, many of its units, used for guarding economic assets, deserted en masse on the eve of the liberation, converting to partisan units, the BKO leadership fled to Germany, where in January 1945, it was headed by the Grenadier Brigade of the 30th Division of the SS, Belarus.

Belorusskaya Tsentral'naya Rada (BTsR) Belarussian Central Council  administrative body, established by the Nazis in December 1943, headed by Radoslav Ostrovskii, formally charged with national education, cultural-enlightenment uplift, scientific community organizations, people's social security.

Belorusskoe Nauchnoe Obshchestbo (Belaruskae Navukovae Zgurtavanne) Belarussian Scientific Association founded in 1942 in Minsk, President: I. Ermachenko, Honorary President V. Kube, the plan was scientific  exploratory work in Berlin. The society had branch sections for national policy, and sections (Belarussian policy, mathematics, resource management, technical, law, etc.) which trained 160 people.

Belorusskii Shtab Partizanskogo Dvizheniya (BShPD) Belarussian Headquarters for the Partisan Movement  war-time operational body for directing the partisan movement in Belarussian territory, formed on September 9, 1942; Chief of Staff: P.Z.Kalinin (October 1942  October 1944), A. A. Prokhorov (October  November 1944); had 10 sections (operations, intelligence, information, communications, training, ciphers, engineering-technical, and secret), disposal and sanitation staff, administrative-financial section and commandants of platoons, as well as interpreters and permanent principal liaison, training camps, dispatch-transportation bases, an aviation branch & other structures; finally disbanded on November 14, 1944.

Belorusskoye Obshchestvo Krasnogo Kresta (Belarussian Society of the Red Cross)  voluntary association organized for unexpected assistance for injuries, disease and persons, victims of military operations, and natural disasters. Founded in 1921 as a republican society. In the war years conducted more work for training people to help themselves, army training, and rear-guard medical personnel, organizing blood donors, final clean-up after air raids, assistance to men at the front, war casualties, orphaned children, sanitary improvement work. From1945 the framework of work conducted by the Red Cross became the search for Soviet and foreign citizens missing from the war years.

Belorusskii Gosudarstvenny Musei Istorii Velikoi Oteschestvennoi Voiny (Belarussian State Historical Museum of the Great Patriotic War) (WW-II)  founded in Minsk on November 7, 1944, it has 31 exhibition galleries (3,600 sq. m.) and over 120,000 items.

Bel'skii, Tuv'ya (Bielski, Tuvia) (19061987) born in Stankevichi village, Minsk Guberniya, Zionist activist in the Hechaluts section when he was 17; mobilized into the Polish Army in 1928, after his discharge, he settled in the shtetl Subotniki, where he had a fabric store; at the beginning of the war he organized a Jewish partisan squad, which joined the Brigade named after Kalinin; in 1945 he left for Poland, from there he want to Palestine, in 1954 to the USA.

Brigadenfuehrer SS - General-Major of an SS troop.

Wannnsee Konferenz (Wannsee Conference)  On January 20, 1942 there was a conference of the leaders of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) and German state officials in Wannsee, outside Berlin, where the decision for coordinated activities to realize the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, was accepted, discussion of the different ways the physical annihilation of 11 million Jews - European and Soviet citizens could be carried out, minutes of the conference were subsequently discovered by interrogation of Eichmann.

Wachmeister  Junior rank in the artillery, flight & gendarme troops.

Vrasov, Andrei Andreevich (19001946)  General-Lieutenant in the Red Army from 1919, 1937-1939 military-political adviser to Chiang Kai Chek of China, from 1941 leader of the defense of Kiev, Commandant of the 37th Army, member of the defense of Moscow, Commandant of the 20th Army, from June 1942 acting Commandant of the 2nd Army Offense, and Vice Commandant of the North-West Front, taken prisoner, collaborated with the Nazis, organizer and Commandant of the Russkoye Osvobdoitel'noy Army (ROA) (Russian Patriotic Army) hanged in Moscow as condemned by law on August 1, 1946.

Gauleiter  regional leader in the Nazi party.

Gauptman (German Hauptmann)  Captain

Gruppenfuehrer  General-Lieutenant in the SS.

Genocide (Greek genos  people, tribe - and Latin Caedo  kill )  annihilation of a particular national group for racial, nationalistic, ethnic, political or religious motives, including establishment of intolerable living conditions, measures for decreasing the birth rate. Deliberate crimes against humanity, as found to be true at the 1948 UN conference On Prevention of Genocide and Punishment for It. Concept of genocide thus used after WWII, when under Nazi occupation there were mass annihilations of Jewish people. In the occupied territory of Belarus, more than 700,000 Jews were killed.

Generalkommissariat Weissruthenien (General Commissariat for Belarus)  Highest civilian government body in the general region of Belarus (Minsk, Baranovichi, Borisov, Vileika, Gantsevichi, Glubokie, Lida, Novogrudok, Slonim, and Slutsk regions). General Commissar: W. Kube (Sept. 1, 1941  Sept. 22, 1943) Karl von Gottberg (Sept 23, 1943  June 1944).

Gestapo (German short name for Geheim Staats Polizei) State Secret Police. State secret police with broad punitive powers, established in April 1933, high officials: Himmler, Heydrich, Kaltenbrunner, Mueller; to organize preliminary investigations (by application of refined torture) and torture civilians, execute annihilation actions of Jewish genocide, after the defeat of Germany in 1945, identified as a criminal organization and dissolved.

Ghetto  section of a town's area allotted principally for resettlement of deportees determined by racial, national, professional or religious population groups, mostly only Jews. In the Middle Ages ghettos were important in many towns, in Western for Jews, in Eastern for Muslims. In the towns Bialystok, in the Lithuanian Principality and in Russia and Poland, they had not passed, though they were dissolved in European countries in the early 19th century. In the WWII period, the Nazis established ghettos in Germany and in several other European countries, concentration camps for the isolation and final liquidation of the Jews. In Belarus, in an area with 165 settled localities, at least 176 ghettos were formed  the data are incomplete  in which perished over 500,000 prisoners; until the late 1980s, the truth about ghettos in the republic was hidden, in 1992 the register of Belarussian Jewish Associations  established and published a list of prisoners of Nazi concentration camps.

Glavnoe Upravlenie Imperskoi Supzhby Bezopasnisti RSKhA (German: Reichsicherheitshauptamt RSHA) (State Security Headquarters)  established in September 1939, combined from 12 chief managing directors of the SS apparatus, containing up to 70,000 collaborators; directors: R. Heydrich, E. Kaltenbrunner (from March 1943); in the capacity of 4th manager of the RSHA entered secret political police  Gestapo; RSHA was at the head of terror, fighting the partisans, mass murders of prisoners of war, civilian population, and antisemitic actions.

Glavnoe Upravlenie Ispravimel'no-Trudovykh Lagerei i Trudov'kh Poselenii NKVD SSSR (GULAG) (Chief Manager of Corrective Work Camps and Corrective Settlements of the NKVD of the USSR)  System of concentration camps and settlements important in the USSR from 1920-1950: camps for forced labor, corrective-punitive, individually set, terms, special, construction sites, as well as for punitive-corrective, children's and other colonies, distinguished by high death rates; after the end of the Second World War a lot of former Soviet POW's, repatriates and Nazi collaborators were put to the GULAG system, which in general was composed, cumulatively, of about 10 million people, of which volume numbered about 600,000 originating from Belarus.

Gottberg, Kurt von (18961945)  from Prussia, participant in the First World War, member of the NSDAP (Nazi party), member of the SS, from 1939 Commissar of Land Management of Prague, from 1940  July 1942 Chief Procurement Service of the SS Chief Management, Police General-Major, from July 1942 Brigadenfuehrer SS, from Autumn 1942 Chief SS and Police General of the Belarussian region, from 1943 Gruppenfuehrer SS and General-Lieutenant of Police, from September 1943 to June 1944 executive responsibility in the General Commissariat Belarus; played a prominent role in the fight against the resistance movement in France, arrested by the Allies in May 1945 and executed summarily.

Dirlewanger, Oskar (19851945)  Oberfuehrer, after that Brigadefuehrer SS, native of Wuerzburg, participated in WWI, Doctor of Philosophy (1922), member of the NSDAP, condemned to 2 years imprisonment in 1934, for petty debauchery; 1936-1937 participated in Spanish Civil War, taken up by SS in 1940, and nominated Commander of an SS battalion (later group, regiment, Sturm Brigade Dirlewanger). Joint collector of criminal elements of different nationalities, participated in punitive operations against partisans and people in Belarussian, Ukrainian and Polish territory, distinguished particularly by his brutality toward the civilian population. Died on July 7, 1945 as a French prisoner in Althausen (Oberschwaben, Germany). According to some reports, he escaped to Latin America.

Evreiskii Antifashistskii Komitet (EAK) (Jewish Antifascist Committee  Formed in August 1941 to mobilize public opinion in the Soviet Union and abroad as a frontier against Nazi crimes, published the newspaper Einikait (Unity) in Yiddish; in November 1948 dissolved on fabricated charges of crimes against the state and spying activities, a large group of people, combined with its workers, were arrested, among them: S. A. Lozovskii, I. S. Fefer, I. S. Yuzefovich, L. M. Kvitko, P. D. Markish, D. N. Gofshtein, L.C. Stern; after the exclusion of Academy [Member] Lina Stern, all were condemned to the supreme measure of punishment in July 1952; in 1955 the Supreme Court of the USSR rescinded these sentences, admitted the accusations were untrue, announced the rehabilitation of the members of EAK, which was declared only in 1989.

Gendarmerie  military police, at first subordinate to the town superintendent, later to the Commissariat; important in each region, with a district center  gendarmerie posts, in rural towns  supported points; field gendarmerie commands were sometimes subordinate posts.

Sonderfuehrer  German military representative or occupation commander, appointed for executing special assignments.

Zorin, Sholom (1898  1974)  at the beginning of the war, worked as a joiner in Minsk, ghetto prisoner, later confined to a prisoner of war camp in Minsk at Ul. Shirokaya [Shirokay St.], fled in 1943 and organized a Jewish resistance group, the basis of branch squad No. 106, in the fight to escape Nazi encirclement of 6 July 1944, gravely wounded, lost a leg. Immigrated to Israel from 1971.

Katastrofa Evropeiskogo Evreistva (Disaster for European Jews) (Hebrew: Shoah, literally disaster) (Holocaust)  the destruction of over 6 million Jews in Eastern Europe as a result of organized persecution and systematic annihilation of the Jewish nation on the occupied territories by German forces. The final disaster had conclusive importance for the present and the future of the Jewish people, a warning, after half a century after the conclusion of the 2nd World War:

January 1933  August 1939: removal of Jews from the public life of Germany and forced emigration with confiscation of property, reinforcement of Nazi ideology in different European countries;

June 1941  Fall 1943: prohibition of Jewish emigration in Germany, isolation in ghettos, pogroms and persecution in the occupied countries of Europe.

June 1941  Fall 1943: exploitation and realization of detailed Nazi Jewish genocide program, Sonderkommando activity, formation and liquidation of large ghettos, in the USSR, mass deportations of Jews from Italy, Norway, France, Belgium, Slovakia and Greece by the Germans.

Winter 1943  May 1945: temporary deceleration of programs to annihilate Jews and utilization of labor for military needs, utilization of Jews under constraint in institutions by allied powers, measures to realize mass murders, evacuations on foot of prisoners in concentration camps in the regions ahead of the front (death marches), attempted annihilation of the remaining Jews.

Katyn' (Katynskii Les ) (Katun Forest)  located 14 km west of Smolensk, in the vicinity of the Glezdovo railway station [built] in the 1930s, location of a mass murder of Soviet citizens  victims of groundless repression, in spring 1940 a unit of the NKVD annihilated at Katun over 4 thousand Polish officers, members of the intelligentsia in fall 1939 on territory of the USSR and conveyed here from Kozel camp; carrying out shootings here and during the period of German occupation; in 1989 a memorial was erected.

Kerzona Linia (Curzon Line)  a stipulated named boundary, recommended in December 1919 by the High Security Entente in capacity of the Eastern boundary of Poland.

Kozlov, Vasilii Ivanovich (19031967)  party and state official, Hero of the Soviet Union, General-Major (1943), native of Rogachev Uezd, Mogielv Guberniya, from a peasant family, member of the CPSU (Communist Party) from 1927, working activity beginning as a railway worker in 1917, 1925-1927 Red Army, 1928  1940 party work in Zhlobin, Stardobin and Cherven' Districts, law studies at the Communist University of Minsk (1933), from 1940 Vice-Chairman of the Soviet People's Commission of the BSSR, from March 1941 Secretary of the Minsk Regional Council of the Communist Party of Belarus, in the war years kept to the German rear for the sake of underground organizations, from July 1941 Commander of partisan associations in Minsk, 1944-1948 First Secretary of the Minsk Region and City Committee of the KP(b)B, 1948  1967 Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR and simultaneously Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, member of the Bureau TsK KPB (19451967), Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Nazi Concentration Camps  places of confinement, execution of compulsory work and annihilating people and prisoners of war for political or racial reasons. For female citizens of important countries, there was work in SD camps, resettlement to SS camps, military headquarters and ghettos. Most [camps] were located in open spaces, encircled by barbed wire fences. In the territory of Belarus, over 260 camps appeared, their branches and remote, consequently more than 1 million 400 thousand people became victims. One of the first was opened at Drozdy near Minsk (over 140,000 people), large-scale for quantitative sacrifice after Auschwitz and Majdanek death camps in Little Trostents; in Skobrovka village of the Pukhovichi district there perished 1,500 children as donors for German soldiers; the most large-scale concentration camps were in Bobriusk, Bereza, Kolbasino, Lesnoe, Molodechno, Masyukovshchina.

Kube, Richard Paul Wilhelm (18871943)  native of Glogau, Ostmark Province, member of the NSDAP 1924  1928, in 1933 member of the Reichstag for the Nazi party, 1928  1933 member of the Prussian Landtag, leader in the NSDAP, 1933  1936 Ober-President of Berlin-Brandenburg and Posen (Westpreussen), 1941  1943 General Commissar of Belarus, 22 September 1943 killed in Minsk by partisans, buried in Lankwitz area of Berlin.

Prisoners' of war camps - during the years of Nazi occupation in Belarus1941  1944, over 810,091 Soviet prisoners of war were executed, killed, or starved.

Lohse, Heinrich (1896-1964)  native of Muehlenberg (Holstein), mercantile employee, 1915-1916 soldier in the First World War, liberated from service by being wounded, in 1921 joined the NSDAP, member of the rightwing party? in Schleswig-Holstein's People's Socialist party, after 1925 Gauleiter NSDAP in Schleswig-Holstein, from 1928 Deputy in the Prussian Landtag, later Deputy in the Reichstag, afrom March 1933 Oberpresident of the Land (province) Schleswig-Holstein, Obergruppenfuehrer SS, from November 1941 Reichskommissar Ostland, Reichskommissar of the Baltic (States), in 1948 sentenced by the court in Bielefeld to a 10 year term in prison, with confiscation of his property, freed in 1951, died in 1964.

Meister  Junior rank in the gendarmerie.

National Socialism  an ideology, political party, and state regime (1933  1945) in Germany, proclaimed by German individuals hostile to all other people, not ranking as Master Race, claimed that Jews had such great physical and moral deformity, the complete antithesis to Germans, that the force of their religion, national character, meant Jews are a danger to humanity and should be totally annihilated.

Obergruppenfuehrer SS  General-Colonel of an SS unit.

Oberfuehrer SS  Senior Colonel of an SS unit.

Obersturmfuehrer SS  Senior Lieutenant SS

Oberscharfuehrer SS  Minor rank in the SS

Oberst  Colonel in the German Army

Oberstleutnant  Junior Colonel

Okonchatel'noe Reshenie (German: Endloesung) (Final Solution)  generally accepted phrase adopted by German Nazi leadership in May 1941 as a symbol for the physical annihilation of the Jews of Eastern Europe.

Operation Bagration (23 June  29 August 1944)  code name for the first large strategic patrol operation of the Soviet Army to liberate the whole of the BSSR, in accord with the national perspective in Poland and Czechoslovakia; offensive passage through a zone 1,100 km, effective aggressive movement with Nazi casualties, deaths, wounded and prisoners, around 500,000, Soviet units advanced 550  600 km to the west, beginning the Belarussian liberation, starting in fall 1943, the liberation of sections of Latvia and Lithuania, entering into Poland and alarming the citizens of East Prussia; [this] great defeat in Belarus worsening the general strategic position of the Germans and bringing closer the end of the 2nd World War.

Otlichitel'ny Znak (Distinguishing Signs)  which compelled Jews to be isolated from the rest of the population, a concept from the ancient Middle Ages. In the years of WWII, the Nazis strictly compelled all Jews in their country to wear a Magen David at all times, and added a J to their registration cards, for Jude. In Belarus, Jews had to have on all outer wear a white or yellow band with a six-pointed star, a yellow triangle or a circle with a diameter not less than 10 cm; this way, almost total isolation of the Jews from other citizens was attained, and used in their total destruction.

Osobaya Obrabotka (Separate Treatment)  A Nazi term used in annihilation and documents concerning informational measures on annihilation of minority groups, liquidation of ghettos, transportation to death camps.

Ostland (Eastern Regions) Reichskommissariat Ostland :

Individual artificial administrative-territories, established by the occupational command from September 1941, and including four general regions  Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia;

Highest German civilian body administering the territory of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, part of Belarus, and part of Leningrad and Pskov regions (oblast) (formed 17 June 1941)

Partisan Formation  consisting of brigades, regiments, separate detachments and special reinforcement subsections  motorized, artillery, mortar, nearly all of which were reserve command formations. These did not have individual organizational functions; Brest partisan formation consisted of 11 partisan brigades (12,000 men), Gomel partisan formation  14 brigades (over 20,000 men), etc.

Partisan Brigade  association of 3 to 10 detachments numbering 600-1800 members, up to several thousand people, having artillery and mortar sections, arms workshops, hospitals, financial organization, reserve and educational sections. All in all, there were at various times 199 brigades active in Belarus.

Partisan Regiment  composed of detachments, in which many were servicemen. For the number of individuals included, [they had] arms and a communication structure. A regiment had a command, three infantry battalions, division of platoons, a company of heavy arms (guns, mortar, machine guns) and a hospital. In all, in Belarussian territory, 14 regiments were active (principally in Minsk and Mogilev regions).

Polyakov, Ivan Evteevich (1914-1995)  government & party official, Hero of Socialist Labor (1973), worked on the initial electrification of Gomel (1933), later Comsomol (Young Communist League) worker in enterprises in Gomel, Mogilev, and Kuibyshchev, in the war years (1942) first of the Comsomol Managers in the underground & partisan divisions in Gomel region, from 1943 First Secretary of the Gomel and Minsk Comsomol Regional Committee from 1949 First Secretary of the Vitebsk, Rechitsa, district and city committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia. First Secretary of Gomel (from 1957) and Minsk (from 1964) Regional Committee of KPB [Communist Party of Belarus], President of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR (from 1977), and at the same time Vice President of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (from 1952) and the Central Committee Communisty Party of the USSR (from 1962), Deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Ponomarenko, Panteleimon Kondrat'evich (1902  1984)  Soviet government and party official, General-Lieutenant (1943), First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia (from 1938) and at the same time member of the Headquarters Staff of the Partisan Divisions of the USSR attached to the Supreme Staff of the Commander-in-Chief (1942), President of the Soviet Peoples' Commissariat Belorussia (1944), Secretary of the Ts K BKP(b)B 1948  1953, Vice President of the Soviet Ministry of the USSR (1952  1953), First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Communist Party (1954), in the diplomatic corps (1955), member of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 1939 to 1961.

Pravedniki Narodov Mira (Righteous Gentiles)  honorary title, awarded to people who saved one or more Jews from the hazards of their lives during WWII. Those so honored and their children are called true practitioners of giving and named Israeli citizens, the rescuers themselves are granted personal pensions. The commission for awarding the title is headed by the President of the Supreme Court of Israel, which work is coordinated (since 1962) by a special division of Yad Vashem.

Reich  government, empire, German Empire. The Nazis divided the history of Germany into three periods.

The German state, the Holy Roman Empire (962  1806) which collapsed as a result of the Napoleonic Wars

The state founded by Bismarck (871  1918)

The Third Empire from the moment of Hitler's arrival in the country on 30 January 1933.

Reichsleiter  Highest rank in the Nazi party leadership

Reichstattshalter  imperial governor-general.

Repatriation (Latin: repatrio  return to one's country)  return from a foreign land. As a result of war, German territory and its allied resources encompassed 10 million 181 thousand citizens of the USSR, of which number 5 million 663 thousand were members of minority groups, and 4 million 552 thousand were prisoners of war. In Belarus around 400,000 people were deported. The Soviet government was interested in a more rapid & complete repatriation of its citizens. From refugee camps and displaced (person) lists, in the western occupied zone, Soviet workers in the repatriation commission were assisting state security (forces) with the result that a large? A good number of the refugees were directed to camps in the Soviet zone, regardless of their wishes. On 1 March 1946, 4 million 199 thousand Soviet citizens were repatriated, among them 520,672 to Belarus, 1946-1952 - 102,893 repatriates were retrieved, the majority of them forced to return to their country by the Soviet military. The problem of repatriation was the subject of keen ideological and diplomatic battles between the USSR and the West in the first postwar years.

Sel'skie obshchiny (German: Gemeinwirtschaft) (Rural communes)  Common management, founded on the basis of the kolkhoz (collective farm).

Sel'skie (derevenskie) Starosty (Rural (village) Head)  Village representative, subordinate to the volost (smallest administrative division) manager.

SD (German: Sicherheitsdienst) (Security Service)  service subordinate to the Reichsfuehrer SS, political service subordinate to the Nazi party, permeating all spheres of life in Germany and in the occupied territories, the SD played a leading role in the exploitation plan Ost, implementing the plan Barbarossa, from May 1941 consisted of 4 Einsatzgruppen, subordinate to the army command of the Western Front, for developing (methods for) mass murder of minority groups, first of all Jews; after the defeat of Germany in 1945, abolished and proclaimed outside the law.

SS (German: Schutzstaffel)  military guard of the Nazi party, founded in 1924, from the beginning of WWII the SS military (Waffen SS) units predominated, which activity replaced political security and the SD from general command of Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler. Actively participated in mass genocide of Jews, in 1945, after the defeat of Germany, declared a criminal organization.

SA (German: Sturmabteilung)  storm trooper division of the Nazi party.

NSDAP (German: Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)  National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (Nazi)

Soyuz Bor'by Protiv Bolshevisma (Union Fighting Against Bolshevism)  public organization founded in Bobruisk in March 1944, had region (okrug) and district (rayon) committees and groups, own symbolism and membership cards; engaged in propaganda, publishing and philanthropic activities, founded as an SS front, as of 1 June 1944, numbered over 1000 members.

Sluzhba Poryadka (German: Ordnungsdienst, OD) (Order Service)  auxiliary police in urban areas, initially formed on June 7, 1941, subordinate to the mayor, formulated as a combination of 1 policeman for every 100 village inhabitants or 300 urban citizens.

Sluzhba Strazhi (German: Wachtdienst) (Sentry Service)  a function of the OD structure, had stationary and mobile posts, on duty command, and so on. In Belarussian territory, also (carried out) the function of the field police, subordinate to the military commanders, the railway police, and so on.

Smolyar, Girsh (1905  1996)  Jewish Community functionary, member of the Bialystok Revolutionary Committee, worked at the tanning factory in Kiev, graduated from Communist University of National Minorities of the West in Moscow, 1928 illegal return to Poland as Komintern agent, several times nearly arrested, in 1939 fled from Bialystok, where he proclaimed the department of united writers, from 1941, active in the underground organization in the Minsk ghetto, in summer 1942 Commissar of the partisan brigade named after Lazo, since 1946 living in Warsaw, Member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of Polish Jews, since 1971 repatriated to Israel, wrote much (short stories, essays, editorials, books) about Jewish destiny before, during and after the Holocaust.

Sudy (Law-court)  before November 1941 there was a single form of court in Belorussia under German military law. Later on city and district civil law functioned. In Minsk region, there were 51 civil courts, in Minsk city 1 district and 4 civil courts, which examined civil and criminal matters. This domination altered the legitimate civil legal system in the Russian Empire and in some parts of Western Belorussia the German codex (replaced the law) of the Polish Republic. The law provided strong penalties for (crimes above) 200 marks and meted out sentences of twice the deprivation of liberty. Verdicts under civil law were appealed at district or altered by the district (rayon) commissar. District courts of appeal considered civil matters of total value over 500 marks. Their decisions could be countermanded by the General or District Commissar. The law prescribed and displaced parts of the justice of the General Commissariat Belarus.

Tainaya Polevaya Politsia (German: Geheimfeldpolizei, GFP) (Secret Field Police)  police executive body of the military counterintelligence of the acting army; discharging Gestapo functions in the active zone, closest to the army and behind the front., providing counterintelligence workers and punitive actions not far from the front line.

Turmy (Prison)  Places for preliminary confinement and maintenance of citizens for political reasons, for employment, as a rule, torture. Not infrequently, prisoners were subsequently transferred to camps; Belorussian Archives have preserved documents (lists of arrests, transcripts of interrogations, case files, and registration books) for Bobruisk, Vitebsk, Drissa Kirov, Pinsk, Oshmyany, Slutsk, and Stolbtsy jails, and as well house arrests conducted by the Order Service (OD) of the SD in Mogilev.

Volksdeutsche - Ethnic Germans living beyond the borders of Germany and not appearing (to be) citizens of the Third Reich, after occupation of the territory by German units, benefiting from privileges among urban residents and not infrequently occupying administrative posts.

Tsanava (Dzhangava), Lavrentii Fomich (1900-1955)  General-Lieutenant, native of the village of Khut-Sopeli, Gegechkov District, Georgia, from 1928-1933 Chief of the Special Department of the Infantry Division, Assistant Chief of the OGPU (Secret Police) of the Georgian SSR, 1935-1937 Political Secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party, 1937-1938 Vice-Chairman of the Agriculture of Georgia, from 17 December 1938 to March 9, 1941 Minister of Interior Affairs of the BSSR, 19411943 Chief of the Special Division of the Secret Police of the Western Front, from June 1943 to November 3, 1951 Minister of the State Security in BSSR, arrested on April 4, 1953, died in prison (having committed suicide on October 12, 1955).

Tsentral'ny Shtab Partizanskogo Dvizhenia (TsSHPD) (Headquarters of the Partisan Division)  military operational body of the command of the partisan divisions in the occupied territories of the USSR, founded by the Supreme Staff of the High command on May 20, 1942, Chief of Staff was P.K. Ponomarenko, disbanded on January 13, 1944.

Untersturmfuehrer SS  Lieutenant of an SS unit.

Upravy (Equality)  urban self-government body, subordinate to city and district Commissars, the district chief and chief mayor (starshinam), consisting of departments (administrative, financial, public health, schools); Upravy were subordinate service organizations (city auxiliary police).

Upolnomochennye TsK KPB and BShPD (Delegates to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus and the Belorussian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement)  extraordinary institution, created outside the framework of the charter of the BKP(b). They had special rights to determine all problems, coupled to the partisan division and work of the underground in the regional territories, had three, as many as four assistants and subordinates of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia.

Holocaust (English, literally burnt)  in summary: the disaster of European Jews.

Standartenfuehrer SA  Commander of an SA unit.

Eichman, (Karl) Adolf (1906-1962)  German war criminal, from 1933 in the SS, 1937 Chief of the Department for Jewish Affairs, in the Imperial Director of Security, responsible for organizing mass genocide of Jews, fled to Argentina in 1945, from where he was kidnapped while in hiding by Israeli intelligence, tried in Tel-Aviv and executed; the only example of capital punishment in the history of the State of Israel.

Judenrat (Jewish Council)  Jewish council, formed as a puppet body for a previously fixed role in general life, the primary tasks  contact with the rulers, provision of food to prisoners, depreciation of medical and social assistance, organization of force labor, and compilation of lists for deportation to annihilation camps. In Belarus, Judenrate were created by Nazis (and were) vitally important in the ghettos of Minsk, Brest, Grodno, Bialystok, Vitebsk, and numerous other towns; in later stages members of the Judenrat and Jewish ghetto police, whatever their authority, were liable to be liquidated.

Janetzke, Wilhelm Georg  born in Berlin in 1911, member of the NSDAP since 1929; from November 10, 1941 to October 1, 1943 chief of the Minsk city Commissariat  governed the citizens of occupied Minsk; captured and jailed 11 May 1945 in Brandenburg district, kept in a prisoner of war camp in Bobruisk.

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