June 3

The Słonim Ghetto was the site of the rapid persecution, ghettoization, mass shootings, and final liquidation of the Jewish community of Słonim (then in the Byelorussian SSR) following the German invasion that began on June 22, 1941. Over the late summer and autumn of 1941 and through 1942, Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei units, and local auxiliaries carried out organized roundups and mass executions—most notably a series of large shootings in mid‑November 1941—that destroyed the large prewar Jewish presence in Słonim and the surrounding district. Estimates of victims vary by whether they count town residents alone or include the wider county; scholarly and memorial figures commonly range from several thousand into the low tens of thousands.

On June 26, 1941, three unidentified aircraft dropped bombs on the Hungarian-administered city of Kassa (today Košice), striking parts of the central city and injuring and killing civilians. The attack — for which responsibility remains disputed — was used by Hungary’s government as the immediate pretext to declare war on the Soviet Union the next day, binding Hungary formally to the Eastern Front campaign and altering its wartime course.

Beginning on or about June 26, 2013, a violent confrontation in Shanshan County (Piqan), Turpan Prefecture, Xinjiang, China, escalated into unrest that was rapidly suppressed by local security forces. Official accounts described a short-lived public disturbance quelled with arrests; exile Uyghur groups and other observers disputed those figures. Independent verification remains limited, and the episode is remembered as one of several local clashes that fed a wider cycle of tightened security in Xinjiang.