According to the 1939 census, 6.300 Jews lived in the city. They made up 36% of the local population. With the beginning of the war, Jews who were drafted into the ranks of the Red Army, as well as who belonged to the number of party functionaries and managers, were able to leave Mazyr.

The Nazis captured the city on August 22, 1941. With the arrival of the occupiers, spontaneous robberies and murders of Jews began. About 250 Jews were drowned in the Pripyat River. The Nazis subjected Jews to all kinds of bullying. According to eyewitnesses, the elderly were forced to carry water from the river uphill until exhaustion, and then they were shot.

On August 31, 1941, a group of Jews decided to die of their own free will, and not wait for death from the invaders. About 40 people gathered at Pushkin, 19 in the house of the Gofshtein family. They poured kerosene over the house and set it on fire. Nothing remained of the house, and in the post-war years, the place where it was located became notorious. It was not recommended for visitors to settle here, and the locals avoided it.

In 2003, a descendant of one of those killed in the house, Yakov Gutman, erected a boulder with the inscription “Belarusian Masada”. A month later, it was removed by the decision of the executive committee. Gutman fought for a long time with the local bureaucracy and on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the tragedy, the stone was returned to its place.

After establishing control over Mazyr, the Nazis conducted a census of the Jewish population, including those who had Jews in the third generation and mumars. Then they demanded to hand over money and valuables. A Judenrat of 12 people was created in the city.

The next stage was the isolation of Jews in the ghetto in the fall of 1941. The occupants cordoned off the area of ​​Romashov Rov Street and created a closed ghetto. It included not only local Jews, but also those brought from neighboring regions, as well as Gypsies. According to approximate estimates, there were from 1.5 to 2.2 thousand prisoners in the ghetto. Up to 20 people lived in one house.

At the end of September 1941, a punitive detachment arrived in the city. The Nazis carried out several aktions of extermination:

• At the end of September 1941, about 1,000 Jews were killed at the local cemetery. Prisoners were brought here in groups of 30-40 and forced to dig graves.
• In December 1941, the Nazis drowned about 700 people in an ice-hole on the Pripyat River.
• In January 1942, from 1 to 1.5 thousand Jews were shot near the village of Bobry.
• In February 1942, 1.1 thousand Jews were exterminated in a tract called Romashov ditch.

In total, according to historians, about 4 thousand Jews perished in Mazyr.