Baranavichy

Baranavichy | Baranovichi
Баранавічы | Барановичи
( Belarus. ) | ( Russian )
coat of arms flag
State :	Belarus
Woblasz :	Brest
Founded :	1627
Coordinates :	53 ° 8 '  N , 26 ° 1'  E Coordinates: 53 ° 8 '  N , 26 ° 1'  E
Height :	193  m
Area :	55  km²
Residents :	168,900 (2009)
Population density :	3,071 inhabitants per km²
Time zone :	Moscow time ( UTC + 3 )
Telephone code :	(+375) 0163
Postal code :	225401-225416
License plate :	1
Website :	www.baranovichi.by
Baranavichy

Clock tower

A monument with a medium-range missile of the type R-12 (SS-4)

Baranovichi and Baranovichi ( Belarusian Баранавічы / Baranovichi , Russian Барановичи / Baranovichi , Polish Baranovicze , German Baronenwald ) is a city with 168,900 inhabitants (2009) in the west of Belarus in Brest Region on the east-west main traffic artery of the country, the center of the Rajons Baranavichy .

history

Baranavichy emerged in the 1870s as an important railway junction (official founding year: 1871) in the western part of the Russian Empire and to this day has two railway stations for regional and long-distance traffic (Baranavichy Zentralnyje; Baranavichy Palesskije). At the beginning of the First World War , the headquarters of the Russian General Staff was located in Baranavichy , from which the operations of the Russian army in the first year of the war were commanded. After the Great Retreat in late summer 1915, the city was at the front. In June 1916, in connection with the Battle of Baranovichi from July 2 to 29, the wider area of ​​the city became the scene of one of the greatest battles of the war (Сражение под Барановичами), which killed almost 100,000 soldiers within a few days. Between the World Wars, the city belonged to the Polish Nowogródek Voivodeship and was mostly inhabited by Poles and Jews until World War II .

German occupation

Memorial to the murdered Jews in front of the entrance to the ghetto

In contrast to the surrounding communities, most of the Jews in Baranavichy were able to survive the year 1941 despite several mass shootings because the city needed workers. Immediately after the start of the German occupation, the Jews were resettled in a special residential area, which was fenced in with three rows of barbed wire in December 1941 and thus converted into a ghetto (assembly camp for deportations). There were only sixty houses available for 12,000 to 15,000 people. The food supply was insufficient. The slave laborers employed received no more than 200 grams of bread a day and one kilogram of groats a month. Due to the poor hygienic conditions, a typhus epidemic occurred , which the occupiers kept secret and successfully fought. The fear of the spread of epidemics is considered an important impetus for Commissioner General Wilhelm Kube to order the resumption of mass murders in the spring of 1942. On March 3rd and 4th, the ghetto was surrounded by members of the security police under the direction of the commander of the SD Baranavichy, who transported over 2,000 people to the city to be shot. Previously, the employment office distributed so-called life certificates to around 4,000 Jews who were needed because of their labor and were therefore spared for the time being. This included 32 Jewish doctors from the local hospital, who were even allowed to live with their families outside the ghetto. In the spring of 1942 the Jewish doctors were replaced by Belarusian doctors from the Baltic States, as a result of which they were released, sent to the ghetto and later murdered. From September 22 to October 1, 1942, there was a major action in the Baranavichy Ghetto, in which between 3,000 and 7,000 people were murdered. 3,000 much-needed skilled workers were left alive. In December 1942 the ghetto was liquidated and the 3,000 remaining Jews were shot or murdered in gas vans . In total, between 8,500 and 14,000 people were murdered in the city. Hugo Armann , Sergeant of a unit for organizing home-holiday transport, saved two Jewish people in September 1942, by hiding them in his house and after a few days with the help of a Polish partisans made it possible to dive to the partisans. For this rescue act he was honored in September 1985 as " Righteous Among the Nations " by Yad Vashem .

In Baranavichy there was the POW camp 410 , Baranowitschi , for German prisoners of war of the Second World War . Jury Sabaleuski was appointed mayor of the city by the German occupiers until he was replaced by Aljaksandr Ruzak in autumn 1942.

post war period

After the Second World War, Baranavichy was initially the regional capital of the Baranwizkaja Woblasz of the same name , but now belongs to the Breszkaja Woblasz after an administrative reorganization.

coat of arms

Description: The gold-rimmed coat of arms is divided into red and green. Above is a golden cog railway locomotive with three coupled wheels and three chimneys on the boiler. In the head of the shield is the name of the city in golden Cyrillic capital letters and below a golden, shortened half toothed ring.

Culture and sights

One of the sights of the city is the old Orthodox Church (Свято-Покровский собор), in which there is a mosaic by the Petersburg master V. Frolov. This mosaic was originally intended for the Orthodox Nevsky Church in Warsaw . However, when the church was demolished in 1920 by decision of the Polish government, parts of the mosaic were saved and moved to Baranavichi, where they were installed in the church that was newly built after a fire in 1921.

Not far from the Orthodox Church is a wooden Catholic church, the Exaltation of the Cross (Костел Воздвижения Святого Креста).

The synagogue , built around 1900, survived the Second World War, but was then converted into a residential building.

In December 2009, an ice rink (Ледовый дворец) was opened in the north of the city.

Museums: open-air railway museum, local history museum. The memorial to a medium-range missile of the type R-12 (SS-4) (see pictures) no longer exists.

Economy and Infrastructure

Important branches of the economy are primarily light industry, mechanical engineering and food production.

Education

Baranavichy has had its own university since 2004 , the State University of Baranavichy, which emerged from various technical schools. In addition to the faculties for education , foreign languages, economics & law and engineering, there are departments for further education , distance learning and preparation for university. The university offers both face-to-face and distance learning. The main campus is located in a former barracks, but a new campus is being built on the outskirts of the city. Even if most of the name lettering is Belarusian , Russian is the dominant language at the university. The university maintains university partnerships primarily with universities in the CIS region .

traffic

Baranavichy has its own motorway connection to the “M1” Brest - Minsk motorway . In addition, the city is a railway junction on the routes Warsaw -Minsk- Moscow and Vilnius - Rivne - Kiev .

In the south of the city there is the Baranavichy military airfield , which is used by the Belarusian and Russian armed forces .

military

See: Baranavichy Air Base

sons and daughters of the town

• Maja Berezowska (1898–1978), Polish painter, graphic artist, caricaturist and set designer
• Alexandra Sorina (1899–1973), Russian actress
• Naum Meiman (1911–2011), Soviet nuclear physicist and dissident
• Lidia Korsakówna (1934–2013), Polish actress
• Valerija Novodworskaja (1950–2014), Russian politician, publicist and human rights activist
• Uladsimir Soltan (1953–1997), Belarusian composer
• Sergei Loznitsa (* 1964), Ukrainian film director
• Wiktoryja Kolb (* 1993), Belarusian athlete
• Karyna Demidik (* 1999), Belarusian athlete

Town twinning

Baranavichy lists the following 23 twin cities :

city	country	since
Biała Podlaska	Lublin, Poland	2001
Čačak	Moravica, Serbia	2013
Chibi, Xianning	Hubei, People's Republic of China	1997
Ferrara	Emilia-Romagna, Italy	1998
Gdynia	Pomerania, Poland	1993
Heinola	Päijät-Häme, Finland	1978
Jeisk	Krasnodar, Russia	2011
Jelgava	Zemgale, Latvia	2003
Kaliningrad	Russia	2007
Karlovo	Plovdiv, Bulgaria	1999
Kineshma	Ivanovo, Russia	2002
Konyaaltı	Antalya, Turkey	2007
Mytishchi	Moscow, Russia	2000
Nacka	Stockholm, Sweden	2005
Novovolynsk	Volyn, Ukraine	2003
Poltava	Ukraine	2010
Šiauliai	Lithuania	2001
Solnzewo, Moscow	Russia	2007
Stockerau	Lower Austria, Austria	1989
Powiat Sulęciński	Lebus, Poland	2009
Thừa Thiên-Huế	Vietnam	2007
Tyresö	Stockholm, Sweden	2008
Vasilyevsky Island, Saint Petersburg	Russia	1998

literature

• Tamara Vershitskaya, Martin Dean: Baranowicze , in: Martin Dean (Ed.): The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945. Vol. 2, ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe: Part B . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-253-00227-3 , pp. 1166-1168

Web links

Commons : Baranavichy  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alexander Brakel: Under Red Star and Swastika. Baranowicze 1939 to 1944. Western Belarus under Soviet and German occupation . (= Age of World Wars. Volume 5). Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76784-4 , pp. 103-106.
2. ↑ Lexicon of the Righteous Among the Nations, o. O., o. J., p. 60
3. ↑ Maschke, Erich (ed.): On the history of the German prisoners of war of the Second World War , Verlag Ernst and Werner Gieseking, Bielefeld 1962–1977
4. ↑ Alexander Brakel: Under Red Star and Swastika. Baranowicze 1939 to 1944. Western Belarus under Soviet and German occupation . (= Age of World Wars. Volume 5). Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn et al. 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76784-4 , p. 182.
5. ↑ Двадцать три города-побратима Барановичей. Что мы о них знаем? - Барановичи. Intex-press - Новости Барановичского региона. Retrieved November 22, 2017 .