Murder story of Zdzieciol Jews in the Kurpiesze Forest

The first large-scale massacre of the Jews of Zdzięcioł took place on April 30, 1942. Early in the morning of that day, the Germans assembled the ghetto inmates in the Market Square in the center of town; the German Gebietskommissar personally carried out a "selection". As a result, about 1,000-1,200 "useless" Jews (mainly women, children, and elderly people) were removed from the square and taken under guard to the Kurpiesze (Kurpeshy) Forest, two kilometers north of the town, where pits had been dug. A second selection took place there: The Gebietskommissar showed up and released a small number of people who possessed a certificate stating that they had a "useful" profession, together with their family members. Thus, about one hundred Jews were returned to the ghetto. Thereafter, the Germans and their local collaborators proceeded to shoot the rest of the Jews in groups of ten or twenty (according to various eyewitness accounts).