Tag #146560 - Interview #78019 (Rita Kazhdan)

Minsk was a semi-provincial, semi-European city, because Belarus was within the Jewish Pale of Settlement [3] up to 1917 when Jews were not permitted to live where they liked. So there were a lot of Jews in Minsk. For example, according to my recollections and people's stories, before the war the total population of Minsk was 250,000, out of which 80,000-100,000 Jews were confined to the Minsk ghetto - in spite of the fact that some Jews were able to leave the city before the war.