Wilejka - Commemoration of Jewish Victims

Two monuments to the murdered Jews were erected on Stavki Street in Vileika (the site of the former settlement of Stavki) in 1974. One of them commemorates the 140 victims of the first Nazi massacre (on July 12, 1941), while the other is dedicated to the 350-400 Jews murdered on July 30, 1941. Both monuments were made in the official Soviet style of that period. They are virtually identical steles, bearing the same Russian inscription: "To the Soviet civilians shot by the German-fascist invaders in 1941." The two steles stand 100 meters apart. In the 1990s, a new stele was erected at the former Jewish cemetery on Partizanskaia Street [formerly known as the Osipovichi Road], on the southwestern edge of Vileika. This monument commemorates all the Jewish victims of the massacres committed by the Germans in the area between 1941 and 1943. The stele bears a trilingual inscription. The Hebrew text says: "To the memory of the holy martyrs of Wilejka and the vicinity, who were murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices and buried in two common graves in the Maliuny Forest and in one common grave in Makovio [sic]. May God avenge their blood." The Yiddish text reads: "To the memory of Vileika's holy martyrs, who were killed by the German murderers and their accomplices and buried in two common graves in Maluny and in one common grave in Makovio." The English text says: "In memory of our Jewish brethren (who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators) from Vileika and the vicinity and were buried in two communal graves in the Malunei [sic] Forest and in another grave in Makovio [sic]."