Introduction to the exhibition

The Holocaust knows countless scenes. While some of these places found their way into the collective memory of mankind as examples illustrating the abysses of human thought and action, others have been forgotten or remain completely unknown.

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One of these rather forgotten places is a former camp near Maly Trascjanec, south-east of the Belarusian capital Minsk. According to current estimates, around 60,000 mostly Jewish people from Central Europe and the former Soviet Union were murdered by German occupying forces in the immediate vicinity of the village. Their bodies were buried in mass graves and exhumed and burned before the end of World War II.

Without determined and compliant perpetrators, there are no crime scenes. This digital exhibition therefore sheds light on the people who contributed to the murder of people in Maly Trascjanec. In post-war trials, which were supposed to deal with the crimes of the Holocaust, many of them denied their participation. Others asserted that they acted out of "loyalty to the fatherland".

This exhibition was organized in cooperation with the History Workshop Minsk by Nils Kashubat, Johanna Schweppe, Paulin Wandschneider and Frank Wobig, students of the History Department of the University of Osnabrück. The elaboration took place within the framework of the seminar "Extermination site Maly Trascjanec. From the exploration to the presentation of violent sites of the Shoah and the war of extermination" under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Christopher Rass.

Trigger warning: Some exhibition pages deal explicitly with the murder of people and may be disturbing to visitors. Accessing the exhibition pages is at your own risk.