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  5. Murder Story of Wasiliszki Jews at the Wasiliszki Jewish Cemetery

Murder Story of Wasiliszki Jews at the Wasiliszki Jewish Cemetery

Murder Site
Wasiliszki
Poland
Wasiliszki Jewish Cemetery Related Communities
Wasiliszki
On May 9, 1942, a killing squad consisting of SS, Feldgendarmerie, and local police, under the command of the chief of the Lida Gestapo Leopold Windisch, arrived in Wasiliszki from Żołudek. Members of the SS and police surrounded the ghetto and on the next day, assembled the ghetto prisoners near the premises of the Jewish council. Here Windisch carried out a selection; he separated 180 men having "useful" professions and healthy enough to work and sent all the rest to their deaths. The majority of Wasiliszki's Jews were taken under guard, in groups of 60, to the Jewish cemetery at the southern edge of the village and were shot in the pits that had been dug beforehand. The shootings continued until the evening of May 11. According to various estimates between 1,800 and 2,159 people were killed.
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From the indictment of Leopold Windisch, issued by the Hesse Country court in Mainz at the trial of war criminals in 1966
On May 10, 1942, in Wasiliszki, apparently in the afternoon, after having been forced to partially strip, at least 1,800 Jews of both sexes and all ages were shot in groups at a pit at the Jewish cemetery. The selection was carried out by the defendant Windisch, accompanied by his Polish assistant Wasiukewicz and another member of the Gebietskommissariat (district commissariat) Lida, the chief of the local German gendarmerie, and some local Polish residents of Wasiliszki, at a table set up at the corner of the Szkolna and Wilenska Streets. The Polish "tax-collector" Watkiewicz stood beside the defendant Windisch holding a list. About 200 skilled workers and other "useful" Jews were sent to the right, while all the rest of the Jews were sent to the left and from there to the execution site. ... the defendant told the approximately 200 who were left (and returned to the synagogue) that, as "useful Jews," they would be allowed to live.
ZENTRALE STELLE, LUDWIGSBURG B 162/3424 copy YVA TR.10 / 646
Wasiliszki
cemetery
Murder Site
Poland
53.780;24.852