The Grodno Ghetto

During the interwar period Grodno a city in the western part of Belorussia was part of Poland, however, in September 1939 it was occupied by the Soviet forces and annexed to the Soviet Union, as part of the Ribbentrop – Molotov pact.

Grodno had one of the oldest and largest Jewish communities with numerous social and cultural institutions and was a well-known centre of Zionism, on the eve of the Second World War Grodno’s Jewish population was circa 25,000.

On the first day of Operation Barbarossa – the German name for the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans reached Grodno on 22 June 1941.

As soon as the Nazis entered the city, they forced all male Jews aged sixteen to sixty on forced labour, the following month eighty Jews belonging to the intelligentsia were murdered.

A Gestapo office (Nebenstelle) was established in Grodno dealing with Jewish affairs, initially headed by Kriminalsekretar Gross, and he was succeeded by Heinz Errelis, from December 1941.
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