and was arrested by the Polish police. However, during the trial against the Hramada he was found not guilty. From 1928, he once again changed his political orientation and started to call for cooperation with Polish officials. For that he was condemned by many leaders of the Western Belarusian national movement. In the mid-1930s he published various works in Belarusian calendar books and in the "Rodny Kraj" newspaper, under the pseudonym "Era". In 1936 he had to leave Wilno and moved to Łódź. Nazi collaborator During the German occupation of Belarus, Astroŭski actively cooperated with Nazi officials. In 1941 he moved to Minsk and worked in civil administration. He also created Belarusian administrations in Bryansk, Smolensk and Mahilyow and spent certain time as a Bürgermeister in all of those cities. In 1943, Radasłaŭ Astroŭski became the president of Belarusian Central Rada, a very limited national government, which the Nazis (who had begun to lose on the Eastern front) allowed to be created in order to gain some sympathy from the Belarusian population and therefore to be able to use them against the Soviet army. Although the Rada did not have much real power, it was allowed to manage certain civil issues. Astroŭski was one of the main organisers of the Second All-Belarusian Congress in 1944. Astroŭski and his cohorts supported the annihilation of Jews, but had relatively minimal involvement in carrying out the mass murders. Emigration After the war, Astroŭski fled the Soviets and ended up in West Germany and lived in the Volksgartenstraße in Langenfeld, Rhineland. In 1956, he moved to the United States and lived in South River, New Jersey. He actively participated in Belarusian national activism aboard, and was the main ideologist of the BCR as the legitimate Belarusian government in exile, thus not admitting such status for the main Belarusian People's Republic Council. Astroŭski became a member of the central committee of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. Astroŭski died on 17 October 1976 in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He is buried at the Saint Euphrosynia Belarus Orthodox Church Cemetery in South River, New Jersey. References External links Partisan Resistance in Belarus during World War II Biography of Radasłaŭ Astroŭski (in Belarusian) 1887 births 1976 deaths People from Kletsk District People from Slutsky Uyezd Belarusian collaborators with Nazi Germany Belarusian nationalists Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union politicians Communist Party of Western Belorussia politicians Members of the Belarusian Central