Murder story of Torczyn Jews in the Buyany Forest

… on Friday evening, the "Judenrat police" came to the Jewish community with an order which decreed that all Jews must … gather with shovels near the ... small Ukrainian church on Sabbath morning at 8 a.m. On this particular night no one slept, everyone had a premonition of what was about to happen; however, everyone still wanted to believe in the promises of the Germans, so they all came. The day happened to fall on Tisha b'Av. When all the Jews had gathered, using a previously prepared list, the Ukrainian police read out the names of two hundred Jews. Two hundred men and five single women (including my husband's two sisters) –all young, healthy, full of life and energy – were selected and led to the Boyaner [Buyany] Forest, where the murderers cut short their beautiful, flourishing years.…

In the summer of 1941 … the German occupiers … with the participation of members of the [Torczyn] county police [i.e. Gendarmerie] shot in the forest not far from Boyany village about 300 Soviet civilians who were [Communist] Party members and government activists. I myself was an eyewitness of this shooting…. One day … in early August of 1941 I was working in my field that was not far from the Zelonovo Forest. After some time two Germans brought a group of Jews, about 25 people, to the forest. On German orders the Jews immediately began to dig a pit [mass grave]…. When the grave was dug, a truck in which 20 Soviet civilians were seated arrived there under the guard of [Ukrainian] policemen. Sometime later I saw how the Jews [those who dug the pit], apparently on German orders, were made to strip to their underwear and forced into the grave that they had prepared. They were immediately shot to death by the Germans. Afterwards the policemen forced the [first group of 20] Soviet civilians … into this grave. The Germans shot them to death. When I saw this, I went home. My house was located near the main road [to Torczyn] and, while I remained at home for several hours, I saw trucks taking people from Torczyn to the Buyany Forest at intervals. Sometime in the middle of the day a neighbor came and asked me for a horse. I gave him the horse, but then I found out that I had left the cart that had been attached to the horse and also a plow in the field. I went back to the field where I again had to witness the murder of Soviet civilians. I saw [Ukrainian auxiliary] policemen taking people to the pit, forcing them into it, and blocking any chance they might have had to escape. In the pit itself the Soviet people were shot by the Germans.… Later I learned from residents of the town of Torczyn that about 300 government and Party activists had been shot to death in the Buyany Forest. Before that they had been collected, from the entire [Torczyn] Region, at the square of Torczyn and then taken under guard by [Ukrainian auxiliary] policemen to the Buyany Forest.