How did World War II change the Jewish population of Belarus?

Before World War II, Jews were the second-largest ethnic group in Belarus and comprised more than half of the urban population. The war and the subsequent Holocaust fundamentally altered this demographic through systematic genocide and later emigration, which nearly eliminated the Jewish population from the republic.1

During the German occupation, thousands of Jews were killed or forced into ghettos. In response to this persecution, some Jews formed resistance groups, such as the Bielski partisans, who conducted guerrilla operations against Nazi forces and provided shelter to over 1,000 Jewish survivors in the forests. Despite such efforts, the scale of the destruction was immense, contributing to an overall death toll in Belarus estimated at one-fourth of its total population. By the end of the war, survivors often returned to find their homes in ruins and their families missing or dead.234