City centre (beginning of the occupation)
On 26 July 1941 the Nazis marched into Mogilev. As early as in July, it was forbidden for Jews to go out after 5 p.m. without a yellow six-pointed star sewn on the left shoulder and on the back of their clothes. The compulsory wearing of the identifying signs, in addition to discrimination, served to prevent Jews from hiding and to distinguish them from the non-Jewish population during terrorist actions.
On 13 August 1941, announcements signed by Felitsin, a former doctor and head of the city administration formed by the occupiers, appeared in the streets of the city: "According to the directive of the commandant of Mogilev, all persons of Jewish nationality of both sexes are obliged to leave the borders of the city within 24 hours and move to the GETTO. Persons who will not fulfil this directive within the specified period will be forcibly evicted by the police, and their property will be confiscated" (GAMA, p. 259, op. 1, d. 1, fol. 14). Then followed a whole series of prohibitive measures against Jews: prohibition to work, to receive medical care, to use the dairy kitchen, to trade, to buy groceries, to walk on the pavement, etc. (f.260, op.1, d.15, l.31).
At the same time, a population registration was organised in the city, the results of which were summed up as early as on 27 August: 45,200 Russians and 6,437 Jews lived in Mogilev. For several more years until the end of the occupation, in the course of round-ups, searches, with the help of informants, the Russian and German police would search and kill Jews of all ages in the city and its neighborhood, as well as those people who were hiding them. The list did not include the Jews murdered in Mogilev, residents of the surrounding villages, of whom there were several thousand.
