Genealogy: what were the names of all the villages destroyed by Nazis in what is

Question:Trying to establish the location of both Grandmother and Grandfather's villages. They left before WWI and we have the 'sound' of the names of the villages but not the spelling. I learned that the Nazis wiped out perhaps as many as 9000 villages, burning alive the inhabitants of 600-700 of them in reprisal for partisan attacks. Jewishgen and other sites seem to list only 200 or 300 villages pre WWI...Even the best Ramsey maps seem to show only several hundred villages pre WWII.

In so many words, is anyone reading this a real expert in investigating heritage sites in Belarus (Grodno area)???

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Trying to establish the location of both Grandmother and Grandfather's villages. They left before WWI and we have the 'sound' of the names of the villages but not the spelling. I learned that the Nazis wiped out perhaps as many as 9000 villages, burning alive the inhabitants of 600-700 of them in reprisal for partisan attacks. Jewishgen and other sites seem to list only 200 or 300 villages pre WWI...Even the best Ramsey maps seem to show only several hundred villages pre WWII.

In so many words, is anyone reading this a real expert in investigating heritage sites in Belarus (Grodno area)???

You would need to go to a university library to really get the answer to your question. What you need is an atlas from the region from 1920-1930. They do exist. If you're really looking for an "expert", there is a History professor at Loyola University in Chicago named William Galush who is very much an expert in the region. I don't know his email address, but I would assume that if you go to the university website, you should be able to find him. http://www.luc.edu

I can't answer your question but I believe it would be a great research project for someone.