Murder Story of Drohiczyn Jews at the Drohiczyn Cemetery

On October 15, 1942 the Ukrainian police surrounded Ghetto A and its inmates were shot in ditches by SD soldiers, members of Police Battalion 306, Latvian volunteers, and Luftwaffe soldiers. The pits had been dug by ghetto inmates a month before the operation - on the pretext of providing shelter from bombing. According to some testimonies, the victims were forced to undress and were taken to the pits naked. The victims were probably shot in groups, with their arms tied together with wire. Most of the documents say that the murder site was in the area between the train station and the old Jewish cemetery, although Soviet documents identify the murder site as having been in the area of the cemetery next to the Drohiczyn county consumers' cooperative (Raypotrebsoyuz). According to some testimonies, for several days after the operation the police searched for hidden Jews and [when they found them] shot them in the same area. The number of the victims reported ranges from 1,500 in German documents to 3,816 in Soviet reports.