#HolocaustRemembranceDay I would like to remember the Jews of Brest, Belarus also known as “Briskers”. Out of around 26,000 Jews, only around 20 are thought to have survived. 
The Jewish presence of the town has been almost completely erased, despite us being a majority of the population up until the Holocaust.
Jews who were not murdered upon the invasion were put into the Brest ghetto. soon after that a majority were deported to Bronna Gora, a secluded forest, where they would be murdered and thrown into mass graves.
Mass graves have been found in the town as well, in 2019 a mass grave of over 1,200 bodies was unearthed. When non-Jews of the town were interviewed many said they were never even aware that there were once so many Jews in the town.
The man in the second picture who is overlooking the excavation of the mass grave is Mikhail Kaplan, the son of Jews from Brest who only survived because they were out of town when the n*zis invaded.
The first picture of of Mikhails aunt Liza and her daughter Ruth, the second picture is of Liza (right) and two friends. All of them were murdered.
A quote by Mikhail-
"My father never spoke about what happened, it was too painful. But my grandmother cried all the time remembering Lizochka, Lizochka," he recalls, reaching for a photograph picture of his Aunt Liza dressed up for a night out with friends.”
"My father never spoke about what happened, it was too painful. But my grandmother cried all the time remembering Lizochka, Lizochka," he recalls, reaching for a photograph picture of his Aunt Liza dressed up for a night out with friends.”
another quote by mikhail-
"Everyone knew what had happened, but no-one spoke of it officially," he says. "The Germans destroyed us, deliberately. The Soviets just stayed silent."
"Everyone knew what had happened, but no-one spoke of it officially," he says. "The Germans destroyed us, deliberately. The Soviets just stayed silent."
Post Holocaust government officials have tried to actively erase any form of Jewish history from it, the the main synagogue which had not been destroyed during the Holocaust was turned into a movie theatre in 1959.
1959 was also the year the Jewish cemetery was destroyed, the gravestones were ripped from the ground and a sports field was placed on top. The Jewish headstones were then used to make the foundations of houses in the surrounding area.
Poems written by Briskers about the Holocaust.
My grandpa was a Brisker, even though he was a refugee to america in 1921 it doesn’t change that he slowly saw the destruction of his own community.
When he was in his 60s in the 1970s he planned to go back to see the town, when him and my grandma were at the border he fell to his knees and cried. it was the first time my grandma saw him cry like that. they never ended up going in.
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