Mstsislaw is a Belarusian city, the center of the eponymous district in the Mogilev region. According to the data of 1939, about 2 thousand Jews lived here. They made up 19.6% of the local population.

With the outbreak of hostilities, part of the Jewish male population was called up for military service. On the eve of the occupation, an orphanage was evacuated, among whose pupils there were Jews. There was no organized evacuation in the city. Some of the Jews tried to leave on their own before the arrival of the invaders, but they had to return because of the rapid advance of the Nazis and clogged roads. According to historians, there are no more than 1,000 Jews left in the city.

The day before the invaders entered Mstsislaw, an artel of Jewish cabbies left the village. The chairperson of the artel, Freigin, did not have time to leave; the invaders shot him.

The settlement was occupied on July 14, 1941. The Nazis established a military commandant's office and a field gendarmerie in the city. The invaders conducted a registration of the Jewish population and ordered Jews to wear decals.

In the city on Leninskaya Street, the invaders created an open ghetto, having previously evicted the Belarusian population from their homes. According to available information, the Nazis brought Jews from the Dimitrovo collective farm to the Mstsislaw ghetto.

In the fall of 1941, the Jews were herded to the market square. Men were separated from women. About 30 old people were taken to a ravine outside the city and shot. Young women were selected and raped in a local district store. In the evening, they were allowed to go home.

On October 15, 1941, Sonderkommando 7a of Einsatzgruppe B arrived in the city. The ghetto prisoners were gathered in the area of ​​the pedagogical school, built in a column of 10 people and taken to the area of ​​the Kagalny well. There the local population dug holes the day before. The Nazis took away 50 men who were forced to deepen the pits. Then they were shot in groups of 10 people. Bullets were not spent on children; they were thrown into pits alive. The destruction aktion lasted from 11:00 to 15:00.

According to the Extraordinary State Commission, 1.3 thousand Jews were killed during the aktion. The archives of Belarus have preserved the act of the Mstsislaw city commission on assistance in the work of the Extraordinary State Commission dated November 30, 1944. It says that during the occupation in the city and on the territory of the Mstsislaw district, the Nazis killed 1,645 people. In the course of the investigation, it was possible to establish the names of 926 victims. More than 700 victims remained unnamed.