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Murder story of Wilejka Jews in the Wilejka Prison
Murder Site
Wilejka Town Prison
Poland
Throughout the German occupation period, the town prison – specifically, its courtyard – was used by the Germans as an execution site, and hundreds of people, both Jews and non-Jews, were killed there between 1941 and 1944.
On March 2, 1942, on the eve of Purim, the Germans carried out the third massacre of Jews. During this operation, the Wilejka SD arrested about 300 Jews on the pretext of transferring them to another ghetto. The arrested were taken to the prison courtyard (which is now used as a cancer ward), where they underwent a selection. A small group of skilled workers were kept alive, while the majority of Jews were shot in the prison. According to German sources, the perpetrators loaded some victims onto trucks and drove them out of town, probably along the Osipowicze Road (southwest of Wilejka), to a place near the Jewish cemetery. There, they shot them and cremated the bodies in an abandoned wooden structure, in an act reflecting the modus operandi of the Wilejka SD.
untoldStories.relatedResources
Resources.tabstitle.chgk Soviet Reports
The ChGK report from Wilejka
… The bodies exhumed from the pit near the town prison lay there in disarray; this indicates that, after being shot, the victims were thrown into the grave while still alive. In the process of exhuming the graves – i.e. removing a 50-70-centimeter-deep layer [of soil] and doing some more digging – a thick light-grey mass, along with some ashes, came to light; these were the remains of the decomposed bodies. This indicates that the German-fascist barbarians used some chemical agent, such as a solution of caustic soda: They poured this solution over the bodies of the victims of the shooting. Cremation was also used. There were still [traces of] the bodies of forty-five men and women aged 18-60… as well as the bodies of five children aged 5-14....
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-89-3 copy YVA M.33 / JM/20014
Wilejka Town Prison
Murder Site
Poland
54.499;26.880