German infantrymen and motorized troops pass through a small Belarusian village on their way to Minsk, which was already under German control five days after the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). The Germans designated Minsk the administrative center of Reichskomissariat Ostland, a German civilian administration, nominally under the authority of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Minsk was the site of one of the largest Nazi-run ghettos in Europe, temporarily housing over 100,000 Jews. By 1942, Minsk had become a major center of the Soviet partisan resistance movement against the invasion. Minsk and the surrounding region was retaken by Soviet forces on 3 July 1944. Near Minsk, Minsk Region, Belarus, Soviet Union. August 1941.