Murder story of Telechany Jews in the Grecziszcze Ravine

It was in the morning of August 5, 1941. I was at home when I noticed mounted German soldiers at the edge of the village. I realized that Telechany had been surrounded. A German standing near my house said that all the Jews would be killed today. I saw the Germans come in and take the Jews who worked at the narrow-gauge railway to the building of the Raypotrebsoyuz [district consumer union], where they were locked. On the way there, they [the Jews] were beaten with rifle butts. I hid in the attic, just in case. As soon as the Germans began to herd them toward the building, the Jews understood what was going on and began to run away and hide, but the German punitive squad members made a thorough search and found them. They either murdered them on the spot or beat them severely and locked them in the building. In the afternoon, the Germans and the policemen came and ordered me to go to the Grecziszcze Ravine. When I arrived there, I found other people who had been brought there before me, digging large pits with shovels. The SS punitive squad was overseeing our work. They forced us to dig deep pits. The German punitive squad members would bring in the Jews, 15-20 people in each group, force them to kneel, and shoot them in the back of the head, killing them. I was very close, and had to watch the Germans shoot the elderly people, the children, and the women, all of them innocent and peaceful civilians. The shooters did their work eagerly and happily. After delivering the shots to the back of the head, the executioners who had brought the victims to the site would go for the next group, laughing, while several men of the punitive squad would stay behind to finish off any survivors. To make certain that everyone was dead, [they] would go over the bodies, kicking them with their boots and hitting them with rifle butts. When the huge pit was filled with corpses, we were ordered to cover them. The shootings began in the afternoon of August 5 and went on until the afternoon of August 6. Our German overseers forced us to work faster, while preventing us from seeing their atrocities. In any case, it was very hard to watch, especially when the women with their little children and infants were being killed. In the course of those two days, 500-700 people were murdered in the ravine.

The exhumation of the Grecziszcze Ravine north of Telechany has revealed 32 graves measuring 7x2, 4x2, 15x2, 4x2…, and 3x3 meters, which contain the bodies of more than 1,200 innocent civilians, including women, elderly people, and children. The victims were shot in groups on August 5 and 6, 1941. All the 32 graves are located in the area of the Telechany farms, northwest of the village of Telechany.