Thread by @FOTPK

Last year on #HolocaustMemorialDay, I posted this photo of my great-grandmother's brother, Yitzhak, plus his wife and some of their 10 children, all of whom were killed in the Holocaust.

Since then I've done some research on what happened to them and the Jews of Lida.

THREAD

https://twitter.com/FOTPK/status/1089506889224908801

Yitzhak was one of 3 siblings: his sister Russel (or Rachel - my great-grandma) and brother Israel both moved to the UK in the early 20th C and started families.

Yitzhak and his wife Resha Lea stayed in Lida. They had 10 children.

I only know the name of one, their son Moshe.

While researching my family history, I found records of their deaths in the Yad Vashem (Holocaust museum) archives. (These were submitted by a niece on Resha Lea's side of the family.)

Both Yitzhak and Resha Lea are listed as having been murdered on 8th May, 1942.

Some history...

Lida is currently in Belarus. However before the war it was located within Poland.

In 1931, the population of Lida was around 20,000, including over 6,000 Jews.

By 1939, refugees from German-occupied Poland had increased the Jewish population to 8,500.

After Stalin invaded Poland in 1939 at the start of WW2, Lida became part of the Soviet Union.

However in June 1941 German troops occupied the city. Estimates vary, but up to 2,000 Jews were killed in the period soon after.

The Nazis created a ghetto in June of that year, where all the remaining Jews of Lida were required to live, with many families packed into each house.

In March 1942, an Orthodox priest was attacked in his home. A Jew was accused of the crime, and this was used as a pretext by the Germans to murder 250 more Jews.

On 7th May 1942, the Germans sealed the ghetto, preventing anyone from leaving.

The following day, on the orders of Gebietskommisar (district commissioner) Hermann Hanweg, all Jews in the ghetto who were deemed incapable of work were rounded up.

These Jews (mostly the elderly, women and children) were separated from their friends and family, and taken to the the Borowka forest to the west of the city.

At a military firing range in the forest, nearly 6,000 Jews were shot. Their bodies were dumped in ready-made grave pits.

Yitzhak and Resha Lea were among the victims of the massacre.

Some of Yitzhak and Resha Lea's children may have been killed during the massacre too, but I can't verify this.

However I do know something about their son Moshe...

A Yad Vashem entry by the same niece, Liza Ettinger, lists him as having been killed "in military action - as a prisoner of war" in 1941. He was 26 years old.

Perhaps he had joined a partisan group fighting against the Nazis?

I've also discovered that Liza Ettinger wrote a book/pamplet - 'From the Lida Ghetto to the Bielski Partisans'.

However it's listed as 'out of print' in all the usual places. If anyone knows how I might be able to get a copy, I'd be eternally grateful.

amazon.com/Lida-Ghetto-Bi…

Lida Holocaust Memorial Foundation: lidaholocaustfoundation.org

Memorial to the victims of the Lida massacre:

Other info in this thread taken from various sources:

memorialmuseums.org/eng/denkmaeler…

sztetl.org.pl/en/towns/l/107…

museumoffamilyhistory.com/ce/ghetto/lida…

#HolocaustMemorialDay