Ozarichi

Ozarichi is an urban village of Kalinkavichy district Gomel region, located in 42 km from Kalinkavichy. Ozarichi is located in the center of Gomel region about 166 km from Gomel. Near the village a small river Visha flows.

The first information about Ozarichi dates back to the XVI century in the materials of the forests and animal revision. Then it was a village in Mozyr district of Minsk province of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1786 Ozarichi received the status of a town, the king of Poland Stanislav August Poniatowski allowed to hold 2 annual fairs here.
After the Second Devision of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ozarichi was granted to Sergey Lazarevich Lashkarev,the Counselor of the Russian Emperor Paul I. By 1885, Ozarichi became the center of the parish. As part of the USSR in 1924, Ozarichi became the center of Ozarich district. Years of the Great Patriotic War became especially tragic for the settlement.
In March 1944, near the village Ozarichi, Dert and Podosinovik, the Nazis formed a complex of concentration camps known as Ozarichi death camp, where from 30 to 50 thousand prisoners were located. The memorial sign of the camp says about 9 thousand victims, but modern data revealed 20 thousand dead. The surviving prisoners of the camp were liberated on January 20, 1944. In 1959 Ozarichi received the status of an urban village.

In 1965 on the place of one of the concentration camps near Ozarici village memorial to the prisoners of the «Ozarichi death camp». «Ozarichi death camp» is a complex of three camps located 3 kilometers north-west from Ozarichi, in the swamp near village Dert and in the swamp 3 kilometers west from the village Podosinnik. There were no gas chambers and crematoria here, but this is one of the most brutal fascist camps. Behind barbed wire in the open air in the swampy area there were from 30 to 50 thousand women, children and old people. Also, several thousand patients with typhus were driven into the camp, the spread of the disease led to even greater casualties. By the time of the liberation about 33 thousand prisoners of the camp had survived, among them about 16 thousand children under the age of 13. Behind a memorial in the forest there are crosses with flowers, a chapel is built across the road.