On this day, 3rd September 1942, Jewish residents of the Łachwa Ghetto in modern-day Belarus staged an uprising against the Nazi army occupying their community. It was a response to the planned mass killing of Jewish inhabitants of the area, which had begun the previous day.
Long before this order was made public, though, the Jews of Łachwa had been organising across lines of political affiliation and class to build an underground resistance against the Nazis. This underground was primarily led by young people, such as Issac Rosczyn (pictured, left), Asher Hafets, Hersz Migdalowicz, and more who built a core group of 30 residents.
Violent rebellion began that morning when Dov Lopatin (right), another leader in the area, set fire to a government building to signal the rest of the community. Working off the plans of the underground, Jewish residents set dozens of other buildings ablaze, then rushing to the surrounding forest in an attempt to escape. Meanwhile, members of the underground used stolen axes, knives, and iron bars to free community members already trapped on Nazi trucks, resulting in brutal force being directed at the young men.
Machine gunfire devastated the 1,000 residents fleeing to the forest, with hundreds of them being murdered as they ran. Of the 2,100 Jewish residents of the ghetto, 1,500 died in the uprising, with hundreds more being dragged to execution pits and shot immediately afterward. By the end of the war, only 90 former residents of Lachwa remained alive to tell their story. The Łachwa Ghetto rebellion was one of many instances of resistance by Jewish people to the fascist genocide.
