Murder story of Wilejka Jews in the Maluny Stawskie Forest

On July 12, 1941, Sonderkommando 7a ordered all Jewish males between the ages of 18 and 55 to report for registration at the building of the former synagogue. The Jews had to bring their identification papers, as well as their money, valuables, and tobacco. In the synagogue, the SS men seized their identification papers and, after subjecting the Jewish men to considerable abuse and physical violence, they divided them into four work brigades, which had to carry out various jobs at the railway station, flour mill, etc. One brigade of about 140 people (mostly Jews, but also about a dozen non-Jews; the entire group would later be described as consisting of "Soviet sympathizers") was given shovels and sent across the Wilja River, to the town of Stawek (or Stavki, which is now part of the town of Vileika), 2 kilometers east of the town center. The workers were then ordered to dig pits in the nearby Maluny Stawskie Forest (now known as the Maliuny Forest). When their work was done, the SS shot them in the pits. In April 1945, the Soviet ChGK (Extraordinary State Commission) identified five mass graves in the Maliuny Forest.