At the end of February-beginning of March 1943 (according to most testimonies) or on February 11, 1942 (according to the inscription on the monument at the murder site) the Jews of the Rudkovschina were assembled by German and local policemen at the building in Rudkovshchina that had served as a maternity hospital before the war. From there they were taken, some on carts and some on foot, to the forest about 500 meters from the village, near the road to Maslaki village. Here the Jews were forced to kneel near a pit-grave and were shot in the back of the head.
Related Resources
Written Testimonies
Written Accounts
Boris Toptunov, who was born in 1929, testified:
Interviewed by Alexander Litin and Ida Shenderovich
...Before they were shot, all the Jews were driven into one house. Policemen guarded them there. Then they were loaded onto carts pulled by horses and taken to the forest where there used to be a river. All of them were ordered to lie down, with their hands like this, behind their heads, and then they were shot in the head. I do not know whether they or someone else had to dig a pit. I was inside my house. I looked out of the window and saw a German carrying a girl about six years old. Her mother was Jewish and her father Belarusian. Her mother was taken... somwhere into the forest. The girl looked into his [the German's] face and laughed. He took her into the forest, stood her on a log, moved some distance away, and then fired his pistol. When he missed, she was thrown into the pit alive. Later on her mother was shot....
The International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem
Maslaki Road
forest
Murder Site
Belorussia (USSR)
54.399;30.720
Photos
Site of the murder of Rudkovshchina's Jews. Photographer: Alexander Litin.