Mikhail Mirkin’s letter to his parents and response from Postmaster

Handwritten letter in Russian. Written in black ink by Mikhail Mirkin on June 29, 1944, addressed to his parents in Chereya, Belarus. Mikhail, a Soviet soldier, was inquiring about the fate of his parents; the postmaster of Chereya replied to the letter, written in purple ink, stating that Mikhail’s parents were murdered during the massacre of the town’s Jews on March 6, 1942. The letter was returned to Mikhail on July 27, 1944.

Location: Chereya, Belarus

Date: March 6, 1942, July 27, 1944

Attribution: IHMEC: gift of Mikhail Mirkin

Accession Number: 2014.39.1

Donor Bio:

Mikhail Mirkin was born April 16, 1923, in the shtetl of Chereya, in the Vitebsk province of Belarus. During the war, he was a student of Belarus State University and eventually became a soldier in the Soviet Army. His entire family was executed by a Nazi firing squad on March 6, 1942, in their hometown ghetto. After the war, Mikhail started his own family and lived and worked in the U.S.S.R. He and his family moved to Chicago on January 31, 1983. He passed away on August 1, 2014.

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Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian translation of the online exhibition is made possible With Assistance from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Sponsored by the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future." Supported by the German Federal Ministry of Finance.

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Survivors in front of a memorial to the six million murdered Jews, c. 1948.