Ghetto in the urban village of Parichi, Svetlogorsk district, Gomel region, Belarus

According to Soviet statistics, 1.8 thousand Jews lived in the village of Parichi in 1939. There is no data on how many Jews were drafted into the Red Army and how many managed to leave the village before the occupation began.

The Nazis occupied the village in the summer of 1941. A ghetto was created for the Jews of Parich, in which they stayed until the autumn of 1941. Extermination aktions began in October 1941. According to eyewitnesses, the day before, the Nazis gathered Jews in the center of the village on a vacant lot, which was fenced with barbed wire. A toilet was even organized for the prisoners.

On October 18, 1941, cars drove up, taking the ghetto prisoners to the place of execution. The Nazis were the first to select strong men, who were forced to dig a hole near the village of Vysoky Polk.

It is known that several Jews managed to avoid extermination, since they left the village in advance and made their way to the partisans. For example, Rosa Elkina with her family. She lived in a partisan detachment and survived the death of a child who was strangled to prevent crying from betraying the location of the partisans. Rosa died a month before Parichi was released.

According to the surviving memories of eyewitnesses, the rabbi made a speech in which he cursed Hitler and predicted Germany's defeat in the war. For this, the Nazis cut off his tongue. Another inmate of the ghetto, Leiser Steubzer, did not allow his wife to cry, saying that the executioners should not see tears and that they would face imminent retribution.

In October 1941, in the vicinity of the village of the Vysokiy Polk, the Nazis shot 1.7 thousand Jews. It is also known that the extermination aktions in this area continued in December 1941, when the invaders killed about 1.1 thousand more Jews, and in March 1942, when the last 30 Jews were shot.

Some of the Jews of Parichi survived. Therefore, Elka Sakritser lay in the pit until dark, and then got to the nearest village, where a local peasant helped her clean up. She went to the village of Sekerichi, where she lived for a long time, posing as a Belarusian. Someone from the local denounced Elka and the police officers killed her.

Already in 1947, local Jews erected a monument to the victims with their own money. In 1964, an initiative group of seven people was created in Parichi, headed by Shiya Shifrin. They organized a collection of money among local Jews and natives of Parichi who lived in different cities of the USSR. A total of 4 thousand rubles were collected, for which a memorial was erected in 1967.