On October 27, 1941 units of the 11th Reserve Police Battalion surrounded the Slutsk ghetto. German and Lithuanian Battalion members drove the Jews to the market square. During the forced march the brutality of the Lithuanian policemen aroused the indignation of even the local German authorities. The Jews were beaten with rubber truncheons and rifle butts. Jewish homes were looted. A number of Jews were shot on the spot. At the market square the Jews underwent a selection, during which several specialists was set apart. The rest of the Jews were ordered to hand over all the valuables in their possession and were then taken to pits in the Gorovakha ravine near the village of Selishche (approximately 10 kilometers west of Slutsk) and shot there. Some of the Jews were locked overnight into barracks and shot on the next day. Figures for the total number of victims of this massacre vary from 3,400 (according to German sources) to 8,000 (according to Soviet sources).

More information: Yad Vashem

During the first days of the German occupation between 70 and 120 (according to different sources) Jews who were accused of Communist activity were shot in the garden of the school building on Monakhov Street on the northern outskirts of Slutsk. During the occupation the building served as the headquarters of the German field gendarmerie. The victims were taken there by truck, abused, and then forced to stand in groups of 10 to 15 at the edge of pits that Jewish prisoners had been forced to dig. Then the Jews were shot dead. The murderers were members of Einsatzkommando 8B commanded by SS-Obersturmfuehrer Carl Ruhrberg.

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In the course of the spring of 1942 the inmates of the so-called "field ghetto" of Slutsk were taken to the forest near the village of Bezverkhovichi about 10 kilometers west of Slutsk. According to survivors, on Mondays and Saturdays 2 to 4 trucks took the victims to the execution site, where they were shot or murdered in gas vans. The last Jews of the "field ghetto were murdered on Passover (April 2/3) 1942. The total number of Jews murdered at Bezverkhovichi is estimated to have been between 3,000 and 4,000.

More information: Yad Vashem

On the morning of February 8, 1943 members of the German 22nd Reserve Police Battalion surrounded the "town ghetto" of Slutsk. Special commandos, consisting mostly of Latvians, entered homes and, with brutal violence, drove the Jews out to the gathering point. The assembled Jews of all ages and both sexes were then loaded onto trucks and taken to the former estate of Mokhart, popularly called Mokharty, situated 5 kilometers east of Slutsk, 800 meters north of the Slutsk-Starye Dorogi road, on the far side of the Veseyka River. There the execution took place at mass graves. The Jews were ordered to enter the graves and were then shot from behind. Members of the Minsk security police office did the shooting. During the liquidation of the ghetto some Jews staged an armed uprising, shooting at the German and Latvian soldiers. To quell the resistance the Germans set the ghetto houses on fire. The ghetto completely burned down. Postwar court proceedings against the perpetrators of this massacre cited a minimum of 1,600 victims: at least 1,200 were murdered at the graves at Mokharty, the rest in the ghetto itself. According to Soviet sources, the number of victims of this massacre was 3,000.

More information: Yad Vashem