KOLDYCHEVO CAMP

KOLDYCHEVO CAMP (Koldyczewo ), forced labor camp in Belorussia, located 11 miles from Baranovichi, established by the Germans in late 1941. In November 1942 a crematorium was constructed in which some 600 people were incinerated. It later became an extermination camp in which Russians and Polish underground members were interned along with the Jews transferred from the surrounding ghettos of Baranovichi,*Nowogrodek, *Slonim, and others. Jews were separated from the other prisoners and the camp in the stables of what had once been a farm. Prior to the camp's liquidation on June 29, 1944, more than 22,000 inmates were murdered and buried in 38 mass graves in and around the camp. A prisoner, Dr. Zelik Levinbrook, supplied medicine to the partisans with the help of a former patient. An active Jewish resistance, headed by Shlomo Kushnir, a former shoemaker, existed in Koldychevo. Its arms supply was meager: two guns, four grenades, and some acid. On the night of March 17, 1944, it succeeded in leading almost all the Jewish inmates out of the camp after killing ten Nazi guards and poisoning the guard dogs. Kushnir committed suicide when he was caught with 25 others. Seventy five prisoners survived. The rest joined the partisans in the forest.

bibliography:

Foxman, in: Y. Suhl (ed.), They Fought Back (1967), 172–5; Ha-Partizanim ha-Yehudim, 1 (1958), 453. add. bibliography: Barnowicze Memorial Book (1953); S. Cholawski, "Koldichevo," in: Y. Gutman (ed.), The Holocaust Encyclopedia (1990).

[Joseph M. Foxman /

Michael Berenbaum (2^nd ed.)]