The Pit Memorial, Minsk

The Pit is a monument dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust on the corner of Melnikayte and Zaslavskaya streets in Minsk, Belarus. The memorial is located at the site where on March 2, 1942, the Nazi forces shot about 5,000 Jewish residents of the nearby Minsk Ghetto. The obelisk was created in 1947, and in 2000 a bronze sculpture titled "The Last Way" was added. It represents a group of victims descending the steps of the pit. The sculpture was created by the Belarusian artist and Chairman of the Jewish communities of Belarus, Leonid Levin, and the sculptor Elsa Pollak from Israel. On the obelisk is written in Russian and Yiddish, "To the shining memory of the bright days of five thousand Jews who perished at the hands of sworn enemies of humanity, German-fascist butchers, on March 2, 1942." ()