Liquidation of the ghettos of Białystok, Vilna and Minsk

The three last great ghettos of the east — Białystok, Vilna, and Minsk — were liquidated within a few weeks of one another, in the autumn. All three had lasted longer than the others because the occupier exploited a skilled workforce there, and all three harboured a clandestine organisation.

In Białystok, the deportation order triggered an uprising led by Mordechaï Tenenbaum and Daniel Moszkowicz; it was crushed within a few days. In Vilna, the Jerusalem of Lithuania, the commander of the united partisan organisation, Itzhak Wittenberg, surrendered himself to prevent collective reprisals, and some of the fighters made their way to the Rudniki forests; the ghetto was emptied toward Estonia, Latvia, and Sobibór. In Minsk, where the clandestine movement had smuggled thousands of people out to the forest partisans, the liquidation ended in the gas vans of Maly Trostenets.