The Holocaust Memorial in Volochisk

This monument to the victims of the Nazis stands on a mound in the grounds of a factory on the outskirts of Volochisk. According to my guide, Misha Aizen, some 10,000 people, almost all of them Jews from the surrounding areas who had been taken out of the Ghettos in Volochisk and  Podvolochisk, were shot and buried in a mass grave on this spot. The monument was erected in the fifties by the Soviet regime although, according to Sam Trugman, the Volochisker Benevolent Society in America had wanted to donate some money but were prevented from doing so. Consequently, the Russian plaque which is
affixed to the monument, like the civic museum, makes no mention of Jews, but rather “victims of the German-Fascists”. Since the end of the the U.S.S.R, the area around the site, including several post-war Jewish graves, has been neglected and is now overgrown.
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Last updated 10/25/2000

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