Memorial «Yama», Holocaust memorial obelisk in Minsk, Belarus

Memorial "Yama" is a Holocaust memorial at the corner of Melnikayte and Zaslavskaya streets in Minsk. It consists of a 1947 obelisk and the bronze sculpture "The Last Way" (2000), a group of doomed figures descending steps into the pit. The obelisk bears an inscription in Russian and Yiddish.

Nazi forces executed over 5,000 Jewish residents from the Minsk Ghetto at this location in March 1942. The memorial was established in 1947 to commemorate these victims.

The Yiddish inscription on the obelisk was written by the poet Chaim Maltinsky, and it was the first Holocaust memorial in the USSR allowed to carry a Yiddish text. Maltinsky was arrested in 1949 and the stonecutter Mordechai Sprishen in 1952, both sent to Gulag camps for writing openly about Jews instead of the prescribed phrase about "peaceful Soviet citizens". Every year on 2 March, memorial assemblies are held here.

The memorial is located at the intersection of Zaslavskaya and Melnikaite streets and can be visited throughout the year. A series of steps descends into the recessed pit, so visitors should be prepared for climbing.

The Yiddish inscription was written by the poet Chaim Maltinsky, and the stone was cut by Mordechai Sprishen. Both were later arrested and sent to Gulag camps, accused of "cosmopolitanism" for naming Jews rather than "peaceful Soviet citizens" on the monument.