Swierzen Nowy

The first Jews settled in the village of Świerżeń Nowy in the 17th Century. Most of them made their living from petty trade and basic crafts. In 1897, Świerżeń Nowy was home to 732 Jews, who comprised 41.8 percent of the total population. In the aftermath of World War I and the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20, the town became part of the independent Polish Republic, and its Jewish community dwindled. Świerżeń Nowy was now a frontier town (lying 10 kilometers from the Soviet border), and this location negatively affected its economy. In 1927, a sawmill was opened in the town, providing employment to dozens of people. Local political life was sluggish.

In September 1939, World War II began, and Świerżeń Nowy was annexed by the USSR. Under Soviet rule, numerous refugees from German-occupied western Poland arrived in the town. Since the sawmill gave employment to many of them, they were rather reluctant to move farther into the Soviet interior. As a result, the town's Jewish population had swelled to about 600 people by June 1941, when the Soviet-German War broke out.

The Wehrmacht entered Świerżeń Nowy on June 27, 1941. Anti-Jewish decrees and extortion of Jewish property followed. Forced labor was introduced. In early October 1941, the Nazis rounded up 30 young people and shot them, together with two members of the Jewish council, at the Jewish cemetery.

In October 1941, a ghetto was established in Świerżeń Nowy. In November that year, the Germans transferred 100 male Jews from nearby Turzec to the ghetto. On November 4-5, the Nazis selected about 150 (or 200) male Jewish workers and 20 women and shot the rest of the Jews, several hundred people in total, at the Jewish cemetery, where pits had been dug in advance. After this massacre, the ghetto functioned as a labor camp.

On January 29, 1943, about 200 Jews fled from the camp to join the Soviet partisans. In retaliation, on January 31 the Nazis shot all the Jews in the nearby Stołpce Ghetto, as well as all the inmates of the Świerżeń Nowy camp (except for 12 Jewish "specialists"). In August 1943, the Germans shot the last surviving Jews, who were working at the sawmill, at an unknown location.

Świerżeń Nowy was liberated by the Red Army on July 2, 1944.