Murder Story of Lapichi Jews in Ozerishche

The day of August 18, 1941 turned out to be a sadly memorable one for the village. Before the war that was when Aviation Day was celebrated. So rumors began to circulate in the village that our forces would arrive and liberate us for Aviation Day. But reality turned out to be quite different: on August 18, 1941 the Germans and policemen from a killing unit surrounded the village, collected all the Jewish men, took them to a woods not far from the village, and shot them. On that day Aunt Tonya’s husband Iosif Meerovich Krol and Aunt Zhenya’s two brothers were killed. Only women, children, and old people remained in the village. Of course, they were living in constant fear: every day we heard rumors that now here, now there, they were already killing women and children.

….The Germans apparently arrived in early July. The first shooting took place on August 27, 1941. One hundred and seven people, mainly men, were killed. This included a few Russians. The shooting took place at anti-tank trenches about a kilometer from Lapichi....