Widze

The earliest documentary reference to the presence of Jews in Widze dates to the early 18th Century. In 1897, Widze was home to 3,480 Jews, who made up 68.2 percent of the total population. Following the outbreak of World War I, most of the Jews of Widze were either expelled by the Russian army as "spies" or left the town of their own accord. During the retreat of the Russian forces in 1915, Cossack troops passing through Widze carried out a pogrom, which claimed the lives of several local Jews. In 1922, Widze became part of independent Poland. In 1925, it was home to some 1,100 Jews, approximately half of whom were petty traders. The town was poor, and its Jewish community kept shrinking because of emigration. Nevertheless, in the interwar period Widze had cells of the Zionist Hechalutz and Beitar organizations, a chapter of the non-Zionist Bund party, as well as a clandestine communist cell. In September 1939, World War II began, and Widze was occupied by the Soviets. Local businesses were nationalized, and all forms of non-Communist political activity were banned. In June 1941, the Soviet-German War broke out, and German troops entered Widze on June 27. The Germans appointed a Jewish council (Judenrat), imposed forced labor and various payments on the Jews, and issued a number of anti-Jewish restrictions. In July 1941, some 50-200 young people (the figure varies depending on the source), most of them Jews, were shot by the Nazis on the southern shore of Lake Maruga, northwest of Widze. The pretext for this massacre appears to have been political: The victims had allegedly collaborated with the Soviet authorities in 1939-41. Numerous individual and small-scale killings of Jews took place throughout 1941 and afterward. At the beginning of 1942, a ghetto was established in Widze. Following the resettlement of Jews from nearby Dryswiaty, Drujsk, Opsa, Dubinowo, and Koziany in the Widze Ghetto in early 1942, the number of its inmates swelled to about 1,500. In fall 1942, most of these Jews were transferred to Święciany, and the Widze Ghetto was liquidated in December that year. In March 1943, these Jews were sent to the Vilna Ghetto, and most of them were killed in Ponary. Widze was liberated by the Red Army on July 8, 1944.