October 8: Vitebsk

The Nazis began to liquidate the three-month old Vitebsk Ghetto in Belarus on this date in 1941. Over the course of three days they massacred 16,000 Jews, disposing of many of their bodies in the Vitba River. No survivor was found after the war. These were the early days of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the USSR, and Belarus was a fierce killing field. Vitebsk is best-known to Jews today as the birthplace of Marc Chagall. It was also the hometown of writers Leo Kobrin and S. An-ski, author of The Dybbuk. “I am a little Jew of Vitebsk. All that I paint, all that I do, all that I am, is just the little Jew of Vitebsk.” --Marc Chagall