Murder story of Stołpce Jews in Stołpce

On June 27, the Germans occupied Stołpce.… Early in the morning of June 29, 1941, we were surprised and astonished to hear loud gunfire very close to us. Through the windows, we saw that the neighboring houses were on fire, and the first thought that came to mind was a pleasant one – that these were probably “ours” [the Soviets], returning from the battle with the Germans. When I came outside, I was bitterly disappointed. The place was swarming with Germans, who were everywhere. … They were pointing their guns at the men whom they had brought from different locations. Those men were helpless and scared to death. The new arrivals joined the men from the camp, who had been there earlier, at a place on my right. They were surrounded by SS guards with their guns raised. I wanted to retreat into my house, and instinctively I shuffled to the left, hugging the wall of the stable, but it was already too late. Immediately, two Germans appeared next to me, and, prodding me with the barrels of their rifles, they handed me over to another German, who took me to the left, toward a group of men standing to one side, away from the street and closer to the fields.… It did not take long before we were taken to a field beyond the town, where we were kept under guard. Gunfire could constantly be heard from the village, and we were tormented by the question: what is going on there? We tried to get some information out of the Germans who were guarding us. From their conversation, we deduced that shots had been fired at the marching military procession from a window on Leninskaia Street – and, as punishment for that, the street was now being destroyed. After detaining us for a few hours, they let us go, and I ran back to the town as fast as I could, in a single breath. Arriving in Leninskaia Street, I was shocked to see the devastation wrought by the Germans in such a brief time.

Early on Sunday morning, the Germans started taking us to work in small groups…. Coming back from work, we already heard the “good” news from Szpitalna Street, where they had taken out 72 men, stood them against the wall, and shot them before the eyes of their wives and children. They threw grenades into some of the houses and burned them together with the occupants. The number of corpses from that Black Sunday was greater than 200. A few of the corpses from that Black Sunday were found only six months later, when the Germans had ordered the clean-up of all the sites of the burned houses. The cleaners found human limbs, faces, and rotten hands in the bottom of an oven. The Hevra Kadisha gathered it all and brought it to the cemetery for burial.