Łachwa Ghetto
Prisoners revolt during the liquidation of the Łachwa Ghetto
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Dov Lopatin was offered his own life and thirty artisans. He refused, and set his own headquarters on fire as the signal to fight.
The morning of 3 September
German and local police had surrounded the ghetto on 2 September 1942. The next morning German Security Police under Wilhelm Rasp, working with Police Battalions 306 and 69 and local auxiliaries, entered Łachwa to carry out the liquidation.
Residents already knew what was coming: news of killings in neighbouring ghettos had reached them, and execution pits had been prepared nearby.
German officials offered to spare Judenrat chairman Dov Lopatin, the ghetto doctor, other council members and 30 selected artisans if he cooperated. He refused.
Axes, stones and cleavers
Lopatin set the Judenrat headquarters alight as the agreed signal. Other buildings were ignited, underground members attacked with axes, stones and cleavers, and prisoners tried to break through the fence under machine-gun fire.
The underground's roughly 30 members were not entirely weaponless: they had some grenades and limited firearms. Their leader Yitzhak Rochzyn killed a Gestapo officer with an axe, jumped into the river and was shot in the head. Lopatin was wounded but reached the forest.
By early afternoon organized resistance inside the ghetto was over.
Breaking out was not escaping
The ghetto had held about 2,350 people in 45 one-storey houses — roughly one square metre per person. About 1,000 broke out during the revolt, but only about 600 reached the Pripet River or the surrounding forest and marshes; hundreds were shot during the flight.
Those who did not escape were killed in the burning ghetto or taken to the prepared pits and shot. USHMM estimates approximately 1,500 killed during the uprising and at least 300 murdered at the pits.
Ninety of the escapees were still alive when the war ended.
Sources
Researched 24 Aug 2026 3 sources not yet audited Date corrected
How this was checked
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Date corrected. The research places this at 1942-09-03.
What the sources leave uncertain
- The uprising itself is securely dated to 3 September 1942, although the liquidation operation began with the encirclement on 2 September.
- “First ghetto uprising” is a traditional designation rather than an uncontested ranking. It depends on whether historians count smaller armed clashes, organized revolts or mass breakouts as an uprising.
- Contemporary documentation and survivor testimony produce differing casualty and escape totals. The USHMM's detailed encyclopedia entry distinguishes approximately 1,000 people who broke through from roughly 600 who reached the forest/Pripet area.