International Jewish Cemetery Project
International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies

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Alternate names: Starobin [Rus, Bel, Yid, Pol], Starobino, Russian: Старобин. Belarusian: Старобін. 52°44' N, 27°28' E, 21 miles SSW of Slutsk, 80.7 miles S of Minsk. 1900 Jewish population: 1,494.

 

"Seeking Roots in Chernobyl's Shadow" by Paul Starobin, Business Week Moscow bureau chief. October 16, 2000. "Our first stop was an abandoned Jewish cemetery, where mossy gravestones lay toppled in a field of grass and pines dotted with wild mushrooms and strawberries…A census taken in 1897 recorded 1,494 Jews in a total population of 2,315 people. …On the outskirts of town … is a monument that commemorates the Nazi massacre of the town's Jews. … [Erected in 1967] … The Germans arrived in Starobin just days after their invasion of Belarus in June 1941. With help from local collaborators, the soldiers lined up the town's Jews, as many as 1,000 men, women, and children, and had them dig a pit. Then the victims were lined up and shot, the bodies shoveled into the hole and covered with sand. A botched job: The sand, Trushinskya said, moved for three days."

 

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