Murder story of Drohiczyn Jews in the Ghetto A Area in Drohiczyn

A few days after the destruction of Ghetto B, the young men of Drohiczyn who had been working in the Petrovich camp (between Kobrin and Brisk - sic for Brześć nad Bugiem) started escaping from the camp. Some made their way back to town through the forests and the Radostov camp, hoping to find out the fate of their parents and friends in Ghetto B. Others wanted to join the partisan groups that were operating in the forests at that time. Shalom Zavelovsky (a son of storekeeper Yehoshua Zavelovsky) came to Drohiczyn from the Petrovich camp. At the same time a few workers from Radostov came back to Drohiczyn with a permit from the camp administration. Among these were the Tennenbaum brothers (sons of Sarah Chana Tennenbaum)..., who said that they wanted to take revenge on the Judenrat for having taken away their mother. The Germans found out about this and ordered the Judenrat to hang the young men. Gallows were set up near the old house of study and the Jewish “rebels” Zavelovsky and the Tennenbaum brothers were hanged by the Jewish police…. The only one who [assumed he] had less to worry about for the future was Bontsha Volovelsky, the vice-chairman of the Judenrat. He got along very well with the Germans involved in the aktsias [operations], and used to say, “If any Drohiczyn Jew survives the war, it will be me.” It turned out that he was the first victim of the final "aktsia" in Drohiczyn. In the Judenrat building a German who knew him well shot him. On the same day, which was after Rosh Hashanah in 1942, the Germans shot another group of people in Ghetto A, confiscated their possessions, and ordered the Judenrat to sign a statement that Bontsha Volovelsky and fifteen other Jews had died from heart failure. The chairman of the Judenrat was forced to sign the statement.