Murder Story of Świerżeń Nowy Jews at the Świerżeń Nowy Jewish Cemetery

There were young people who worked there, on the mountain. People aged 20-25, and some schoolchildren, too. So, when the Germans arrived, there was still no ghetto. Their car stopped near the synagogue. The rabbi said to the Germans: "Come and take them yourself. I will not hand over anyone." And they, the Germans, went there and took all these young people away. I was grazing my cow at that time. So, they drove these young guys there, to the cemetery. They forced everyone to dig their own grave. They lined them all along the edge of the grave, facing away from it…, and shot them.… And in the evening, their parents and relatives came to this place. The Germans did not want to bury them themselves. Twenty five people were shot here.... They were the first victims.

On the 13th of Tishrey [October 4], 1941, it was at the beginning, two officers came to the gmina [lit. community; here, this term refers to the Judenrat] … and demanded that they hand over thirty people for execution. The chairman of the Judenrat was a refugee from Warsaw, Czwertak …, and he told them: take whomever you want. There were two workplaces: the sawmill and the limestone mountain, where there was a limestone quarry. They went to both of these places and took eighteen girls and twelve boys, or maybe only seventeen girls… and then they took Rabbi Alpert, saying that they needed someone from the Judenrat. They took them to the cemetery and gave them shovels, and the victims understood where and for what purpose they were going. [At the cemetery,] they dug a grave, one grave for themselves. One young woman fell into the grave together with the dead, but she was not even wounded, and later she got out of the grave and came to the village. My sister's daughter, Doba Wilitowski, was among the victims.