In 1944 the Wehrmacht command widely applied the practice of using the civil population as a shield during the offensives of the Soviet troops. In early March (1-3 March) 1944 the Nazis set up three death camps near the villages of Ozarichi, Dert and Podosinovik in close vicinity to the frontline. Over 50,000 people from Gomel, Mogilev, Polesie Oblasts of Belarus, Smolensk and Orel Oblasts of Russia were brought there under the guise of evacuation. These camps were named Ozarichi death camps.
The concentration camps were barbed wired swamps surrounded by mined fields. People were kept in open air, with no food and drinking water. Building tents, making dugouts, collecting brushwood and lighting fires were strictly prohibited. People with typhus and other infections were also brought to the camps to spread the diseases among the local population and subsequently among the Red Army soldiers. Prisoners were guarded by Nazi soldiers from watch towers day and night. If anyone approached the barbed wire, they were immediately gunned down.
It was a cold March in 1944. The survivors recalled frosty nights, rain and snow in daytime. Women pulled their children together into groups of 15-20 to keep them warm at night. They covered the children with anything they could find and stood close to them throughout the night, guarding them against a cold death. The children ate what women could hide and keep to hand: rye, wheat, millet grains, flour. People had to drink swamp water. Every day and, moreover, night claimed hundreds of human lives. Dead bodies were not taken outside the camp and remained there unburied.
In the early morning hours of 17 March the Nazis left their prisoners and stepped back some seven kilometers to the west. The following day some prisoners made an attempt to escape from the camp but were all killed on the mined fields.
On 18-19 March the 65th army (Lieutenant-General P.Batov) of the 1st Belarusian Front liberated the Ozarichi camps: a total of 33,480 people, including 15,960 children under 13, 13,072 women and 4,448 seniors. The Third Reich inhumane policy resulted in the death of over 20,000 people in the Ozarichi concentration camps in a span of several days.
Over 22 officers and about 50 medics worked with the people from the camps.
Despite all the efforts, many prisoners died after they were freed. Over 50 soldiers of the Red Army who took part in the liberation of the people with typhus died after getting infected.
The military prosecutor's department of the 65th army held an immediate inquiry into the crimes committed by the Nazis in the Ozarichi concentration camps. The conclusion on the materials of the inquiry into the extermination of the Soviet people approved by 4 April 1944 by military judge of the 65th army Justice Colonel Burakov and investigation files were handed over to the Extraordinary State Commission for investigating crimes perpetrated by the Nazi invaders.
The protocol of the meeting of the Extraordinary State Commission presided by Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic P.Ponomarenko (26 April 1944) and the evidence materials on the Ozarichi concentration camps were considered at the Nuremberg trial.
The letter of accusation of the International Military Tribunal in line with the London agreement of 8 August 1945 and the charter of the tribunal classified the crimes committed in the Ozarichi camp as “war crimes”, namely “violation of the laws of war”, while death camps were recognized by the court as “open-air concentration camps”.
In 1946-1947 Belarus held a number of trials of Nazi war criminals on the charge of the crimes committed in the Ozarichi concentration camps. One of the death camp organizers was sentenced to death through hanging. Those who took part in the deportation of the civil population to the concentration camps were sentenced to 25 years in correctional labor camps.
The Nazis set up other camps in Belarus similar to the Ozarichi concentration camps. The camp set up on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River in June 1944 had over 3,000 civilians from Mogilev and nearby areas. Another one situated in the south-east of Vitebsk. 8,000 of its prisoners were liberated by the soldiers of the 3rd Belarusian front.
In 1965 a memorial was erected on the site of the Ozarichi death camps in memory of its prisoners.
The concentration camps were barbed wired swamps surrounded by mined fields. People were kept in open air, with no food and drinking water. Building tents, making dugouts, collecting brushwood and lighting fires were strictly prohibited. People with typhus and other infections were also brought to the camps to spread the diseases among the local population and subsequently among the Red Army soldiers. Prisoners were guarded by Nazi soldiers from watch towers day and night. If anyone approached the barbed wire, they were immediately gunned down.
It was a cold March in 1944. The survivors recalled frosty nights, rain and snow in daytime. Women pulled their children together into groups of 15-20 to keep them warm at night. They covered the children with anything they could find and stood close to them throughout the night, guarding them against a cold death. The children ate what women could hide and keep to hand: rye, wheat, millet grains, flour. People had to drink swamp water. Every day and, moreover, night claimed hundreds of human lives. Dead bodies were not taken outside the camp and remained there unburied.
In the early morning hours of 17 March the Nazis left their prisoners and stepped back some seven kilometers to the west. The following day some prisoners made an attempt to escape from the camp but were all killed on the mined fields.
On 18-19 March the 65th army (Lieutenant-General P.Batov) of the 1st Belarusian Front liberated the Ozarichi camps: a total of 33,480 people, including 15,960 children under 13, 13,072 women and 4,448 seniors. The Third Reich inhumane policy resulted in the death of over 20,000 people in the Ozarichi concentration camps in a span of several days.
Over 22 officers and about 50 medics worked with the people from the camps.
Despite all the efforts, many prisoners died after they were freed. Over 50 soldiers of the Red Army who took part in the liberation of the people with typhus died after getting infected.
The military prosecutor's department of the 65th army held an immediate inquiry into the crimes committed by the Nazis in the Ozarichi concentration camps. The conclusion on the materials of the inquiry into the extermination of the Soviet people approved by 4 April 1944 by military judge of the 65th army Justice Colonel Burakov and investigation files were handed over to the Extraordinary State Commission for investigating crimes perpetrated by the Nazi invaders.
The protocol of the meeting of the Extraordinary State Commission presided by Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic P.Ponomarenko (26 April 1944) and the evidence materials on the Ozarichi concentration camps were considered at the Nuremberg trial.
The letter of accusation of the International Military Tribunal in line with the London agreement of 8 August 1945 and the charter of the tribunal classified the crimes committed in the Ozarichi camp as “war crimes”, namely “violation of the laws of war”, while death camps were recognized by the court as “open-air concentration camps”.
In 1946-1947 Belarus held a number of trials of Nazi war criminals on the charge of the crimes committed in the Ozarichi concentration camps. One of the death camp organizers was sentenced to death through hanging. Those who took part in the deportation of the civil population to the concentration camps were sentenced to 25 years in correctional labor camps.
The Nazis set up other camps in Belarus similar to the Ozarichi concentration camps. The camp set up on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River in June 1944 had over 3,000 civilians from Mogilev and nearby areas. Another one situated in the south-east of Vitebsk. 8,000 of its prisoners were liberated by the soldiers of the 3rd Belarusian front.
In 1965 a memorial was erected on the site of the Ozarichi death camps in memory of its prisoners.
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