Murder Story of Dunilowicze Jews at the Duniłowicze Catholic Cemetery

… until November 21 (Kislev 12) 1942, a day that the survivors will never forget. It was a wintry early Shabbat morning. The inmates of the ghetto were sleeping after the previous day of forced labor and they had no idea of what would happen to them the next day. Suddenly the noise of vehicles startled everyone to their feet. Shouts were heard: “Jews, our ghetto is surrounded!” “They are coming to annihilate us!” Two [German] officers entered the ghetto and informed us that those of us in the ghetto were being moved to Głębokie and that, by 9 in the morning, all of us had to assemble beside the Judenrat building. Everyone knew that the Nazi criminals were lying brazenly. They wanted to use their deceptive words to convince us to assemble by ourselves. But what could we do? There was no question of resistance because we had no weapons in the ghetto. Right away we began to hear the loud sound of shooting. Some people tried to make it across the fence but they were killed: the police were there making sure that no one escaped. In the ghetto people were running around like drugged rats and didn’t know what to do. Some people, who had believed that they would be resettled, arrived at the Judenrat with small bundles, while those who were certain that the ghetto was about to be liquidated tried to hide in the places that they had prepared ahead of time under houses or under stables. … I brought my wife and child into our hiding place deep in the ground and then immediately went to see what had happened to my sister. When I was returning, shots were fired and I barely managed to get to a stable with a hiding place where 17 people were then hiding. I no longer saw anything. One could hear shots and the sound of the explosion of burning houses in the ghetto. Moshe Tseplevich, who saw it all with his own eyes, reported: “They assembled us next to the Judenrat, about 400 men, from there they took us to a stable and set up a machine gun. Afterwards, they took us one by one out of the stable, ordered us to take off our outer clothing and to hand over our money and, then, everyone fell dead after being shot in the back of the neck. Weeping and desperate cries were heard from the stable but that had no effect on the murderers, who continued to carry out their work. Children begged their parents to hang them because they didn’t want to die in the cruel way [the Nazis had].... I did not want to see how they murdered my wife and children,” said Tseplevich, “I ran from the barn so that they would kill me first. The criminal who wanted to shoot me in the back of the neck hit my ear instead. I immediately fell down and did not move, as if I were dead. That is how they took everyone from the stable and shot them in the back of the neck. With time I felt increasing pressure on my body since everyone who was shot after me was thrown on top of me. When I opened my eyes, it was already dark and, after a hard day’s work, the criminals had gone to take a rest. I slowly pulled myself out from under the bodies and stood up.”

On the 13th of Kislev, i.e. November 22, 1942, at 3 in the afternoon all the residents of the ghetto began to tremble. They found themselves surrounded by Germans. Everyone began to move like sheep but there was nowhere to run to. Whoever tried to get across the fence was immediately shot down. Everyone in the ghetto had a hiding place. There was no alternative. Some ran to pits to hide, some fled to attics. The panic that ensued resulted in dozens being killed. We too had built a hiding place - in a stable. It was big enough for eight but, when people started running around, twenty people pushed into it. We couldn’t breathe. Next to us there was a place where sixty people were hiding. When a child began to cry loudly, the murderers heard this: they destroyed the floor [under which the people were hiding] with hand grenades and killed everyone. Then they began to look around our entrance but evening fell and this hampered their efforts. When morning came we tried to leave. It was terrible because of all the dead bodies. Patrols were making rounds to see what they could find. It was impossible to stay there. Whatever happened, we had to flee....