Murder Story of Snow Jews in Paniutycze

… Several days before the mass murder I went to the head of the village (who is now living in Germany), whom I was friendly with, to find out what was going to happen to us. When I arrived at his house, he was very glad to see me and right away put a bottle of liquor on the table, and proceeded to fill glass after glass [for both of us]. Instead of drinking I poured the contents inside my jacket. When the village head was completely drunk, I asked him what was going on and what would happen to the Jews of our village. He laughed aloud and told me that we [Jewish] villagers were supposed to have been liquidated two days before, but because the Germans were very busy on that day liquidating the village of Molczak and two other villages they put ours off for a couple of days. When I heard that, everything went dark for me. I went home and began to prepare a hiding place in the house behind one of the walls. Every night my wife and the children entered the hiding place to sleep and only the owner and I slept in the house. I did not try to escape because I was afraid that revenge would be taken against my family: I had elderly parents, brothers, and sisters. Eight days later, at 2 a.m., I heard noise and commotion. I realized that something bad was about to take place. I went out of the house and I heard the murderers entering houses and dragging out Jews and shooting. I entered our house and opened the doors and windows, and then I hid. Only a little time passed before the murderers entered our house. They didn’t find anyone. When they saw the windows open, one of them said: “They’ve already fled.” That was on Thursday night between the 16th and 17th of June 1942. At 3 o’clock the same night my wife, the children, and I fled to a field. Our house was located 200 meters from this field. There we met 5 other Jews and we stayed there the whole night and all of Friday. On Shabbbat we fled into the forest. Several days later I wrote a letter to the village head, Sabich, and I asked what was happening in our village. He replied that on Friday June 17, 1942 the Jews of our village, including my parents, one of my brothers, and my sisters, were killed. From his letter I learned that about 100 Jews had hid but the murderers had a list of the local Jews. Before the massacre they went from house to house according to the list and found that many of the Jews were missing. After the mass murder individual Jews began to emerge from their hiding places. The murderers announced that a small ghetto would be established for those who remained alive and that everyone should gather in the yard of Rubinshtein’s house. They [the Germans] gave half a loaf of bread and some milk to the Jews who showed up. They numbered 88. When all of these Jews had assembled in Rubinshtein’s yard, the killers came out of the house, surrounded them, and killed them. This took place on June 20, 1943 (a Monday)....