#belarus.

This day in 1941: #Nazis first entered the Gomel in modern-day southern #Belarus.

This was about two months into #OperationBarbarossa (Nazi invasion of the #SovietUnion) when the “shooting” portion of the #Holocaust began with #Einsatzgruppen (mobile Nazi death squads) followed Nazi troops east with the sole objective of rounding up and shooting all the #Jews (men, women, children, babies - every single Jew), and later introducing mobile “gas vans” to kill Jews.

In 1939, there were 40,880 Jews living in Gomel, which was almost a third of city's population.

When the Nazis reached Gomel, the 40,000+ Jews were squeezed into four massively overcrowded ghettos (many additional Jews since 1939 had fled the Nazis by heading east into the Soviet Union, including into Gomel).

By October 1941, 2,365 Gomel Jews were murdered.

By December 1941, 4,000 Gomel Jews were murdered.

Over the course of the next few months, the Nazis completely exterminated every last Gomel Jew.

Canada... inspired by Belarus.

Made a Discord emoji for the old (hopefuly future) flag of Belarus. Behold, :flag_by1:!

Happy independence day to Belarus. Here is the unique belarus flag.