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Sonderghetto documentary to get special release in Minsk

MINSK, 26 March (BelTA) – A special screening of the documentary Sonderghetto will be held in Minsk on 27 March to mark the opening of a monument to Austrian victims of Nazism at the Trostenets Memorial, BelTA has learned.

Attending the special showing of the film will be its creators and main heroes.

"The main characters of the film are children of war from Germany, Canada, and the UK who should not have survived. They survived, however. They are the witnesses of a monstrous crime. As long as they live and are able to tell about one of the worst tragedies in the history of mankind, the memory is alive. This means that there is hope that such a tragedy will not happen again,” the filmmakers said.

According to available data, some 6,428 Jews from Germany, 7,000 from the Czech Republic and 10,476 from Austria were sent to Minsk in 1941-1942. They were killed a few kilometers away from Minsk, in Maly Trostenets. Few of them survived.

Sonderghetto was a special area in Minsk Ghetto. It was the place where the passengers of an unusual train from Hamburg, which arrived in the Belarusian capital in September 1941, were sent to. All of them were Jews who believed that they were travelling to live on new territories. They were allowed to take small luggage, documents and money. They even paid for tickets. Since the first resettlers were from Hamburg, all the Jews from Europe were called “Hamburg”. There is data that among them were those born in Poland, Hungary and France.

The film was created with the assistance of the embassies of Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic in Belarus, and also the Belarusian embassy in Austria and the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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