On this date in 1942, the start of Purim,* Nazi forces occupying Minsk massacred approximately 5,000 Jews from the Minsk Ghetto at a site known simply as Yama, “the Pit”.

The site, which hosts memorial events every March 2, was marked with a somber obelisk in the immediate postwar years; unusually for a Stalin-era monument, it is overt about the Jewish character of the victims — for Soviet propaganda often obfuscated this with a technically-correct formulation such as “Russian citizens”. In this case, the 1940s memorial obelisk remarkably had a Yiddish inscription to mirror its Russian one. (The sculpture of a column of faceless people tragically descending the slope into the pit was added in the post-Soviet period.)

All images (cc) Dennis Jarvis.

Minsk’s pre-war Jewish population of more than 50,000 was almost entirely annihilated during World War II.

* It was not the only place in the Reich’s occupation to mark Purim with blood.

On this day..

• 1921: George Bailey, the first Englishman hanged by female jurors
• 1950: Rosli Dhobi, Sarawak patriot
• 1423: William Taylor, Lollard
• 1962: Kelly Moss, restless of spirit
• 1401: William Sawtre, Lollard heretic
• 1871: Ma Hualong, Dungan rebel
• 1886: David Roberts, dutiful son
• 1942: Jakub Lemberg and family
• 2006: Ali Afrawi and Mehdi Nawaseri
• 1974: Salvador Puig Antich and Heinz Ches, the last garroted in Spain
• 1585: William Parry, Vile and Base
• 2005: Han Bok-nam, whose death was illicitly filmed