Somewhere on the Eastern Front WW2

[fiddlerslass]

Hi,
Can anyone decipher this ? I think it's a placename, could be somewhere in Ukraine or Belarus, or possibly Poland. On the back of a photo.

[Zefiro]

Baranowitza

It's a place in south Poland, I think. Now it's called otherwise. Link has German text that mentions the name.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.doew.at/cms/download/3ge1h/erfahrungsbericht_160542-1.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwitu5D-15KFAxX7T6QEHZKmCQwQFnoECBMQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0n2SQLTg37u--VWLtS1-62

Today it's called Baranowice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baranowice_(%C5%BBory)

EDITED because place is not in Poland

[fiddlerslass]

Hi Zefiro

Do you think it could be this place, which had a major railway junction?  The photo is  probably granddad's Unit on a train setting off for somewhere. My grandad was a conscript in the Luftwaffe and I have another photo taken around 1941 somewhere along the Minsk Smolensk Moscow road of him having a joke with some local people! In civilian life he was a printer and he did some printing in the war for the millitary before being trained on aerial photography at Hildesheim. Apparently they had printing equipment also set up on trains.

After the beginning of World War II the control of the city was gained by the Soviet Union in 17 September 1939. After the start of Operation Barbarossa the city was seized by the Wehrmacht on June 25, 1941. It was part of Generalbezirk Weißruthenien in Reichskommissariat Ostland during German occupation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baranavichy

[Zefiro]

Hi Zefiro

Do you think it could be this place, which had a major railway junction?  The photo is  probably granddad's Unit on a train setting off for somewhere. My grandad was a conscript in the Luftwaffe and I have another photo taken around 1941 somewhere along the Minsk Smolensk Moscow road of him having a joke with some local people! In civilian life he was a printer and he did some printing in the war for the millitary before being trained on aerial photography at Hildesheim. Apparently they had printing equipment also set up on trains.

After the beginning of World War II the control of the city was gained by the Soviet Union in 17 September 1939. After the start of Operation Barbarossa the city was seized by the Wehrmacht on June 25, 1941. It was part of Generalbezirk Weißruthenien in Reichskommissariat Ostland during German occupation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baranavichy

This is far more likely then my Polish place. If you follow the route mentionned in my first link, it's obvious the place has to be in Belarus. I should have read the document thoroughly before 'deciding' the place was somewhere in the south of Poland.
The document also mentions the railway passing through Baranowitza.

[fiddlerslass]

Thought you may like to see the photos I mentioned. In the picture of the Belorussians? Opa Fritsch is on the far right hand side.

[garstonite]

if it was Ukranian , surely it would have been written in Cryllic ??

[fiddlerslass]

Hi Garstonite
It was written by my Grandad who was a German speaking Czech. ( Though he did speak some Czech and Russian, unfortunately for me he never picked up any English