Murder Story of Turzec Jews at the Turzec Old Jewish Cemetery

On November 4, … everything was based on deceit. They said that they needed to select 100 people and send them to work in Nowy Świerżeń. Those were the men most capable of work. Their families were promised to be allowed to join them in two days' time. On the same day, they came over and announced that all the people, even the elderly and infirm, had to leave their homes and assemble in the market square. At that very time, the town was surrounded by armed Germans and policemen. Those who emerged from their homes did not realize that the town was swarming with policemen and Germans. First, they asked: Which of you are the specialists and artisans – cobblers, tailors, carpenters, etc.? Those who replied in the affirmative would be moved aside, but there were relatively few specialists among us at this time, so they [the Nazis] took those who were younger, stronger, and more capable of work. In this way, they selected 100 people, including me and my elder son. My younger son was shot. Cars were waiting for us on the spot. We were given five minutes to retrieve some clothes and a little food for one day. So we went back to our homes, and returned immediately. All the others, those who stayed behind, were beaten and killed. All of them were dragged to the cemetery.… When the day was over, they were all killed at the cemetery. My wife, too, was among them.

The slaughter took place on the 14th of Cheshvan [November 4], 1941. A week prior to that, they had murdered 50 people. And now it was already the general massacre. Now they had to select 100 people and set them aside.…

In late October 1941, on the 7th of Cheshvan in the year 5702 [October 28, 1941], at 3 PM, all the work detachments were released from their workplaces, and an order was given for everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, to assemble at the center of town. I was still running to the appointed place when a member of the Judenrat ordered me to take up a shovel and wait on the spot. Five seconds later, I was one of a group of twelve men marching toward the cemetery, under the escort of two policemen. Walking along the Karelichy road, we reached the summit, and they pointed out a spot where we had to dig a pit 5.5 meters long and 2.5 meters wide [ca. 18×8 feet]. We felt as though we were digging our own grave, but we had no time to pause and reflect on this, because the policemen, using their rifle butts, were prodding us to finish our work quickly. We dug at a feverish pace, and straightening one's back was tantamount to dying on the spot.… There was a refugee from Warsaw among us…. For some reason, his hands weakened, and his work did not proceed. He was then ordered to come up to the policemen and lie down on the ground. They proceed to beat him with their rifle butts…, and, when he fainted, they shot him. Two hours later, when the grave was ready, we heard the echo of dozens of men marching. We were ordered to get out of the ditch and stand 15 meters [50 feet] away from them. As we did so, we beheld a stunning spectacle. 55 Jews, men and women, were being led in a row, in military formation, to… the slaughter. The policemen and Gestapo officers escorting them ordered them to march beautifully. When they came up to the open ditches, they were divided into three groups. The first group was ordered to remove their outer garments and shoes and arrange themselves at the edge of the grave, facing the pit. Serafimowicz, the police chief, came up to his former friend Hanan Hayimovitch - who, under Soviet rule, had been the manager of a flour mill, and with whom he would often play cards…. And it was with him that Serafimowicz chose to begin the massacre. He pulled out his pistol and shot Hayimovitch. A platoon of riflemen standing ten meters from this group opened heavy fire, and the people fell into the grave like sheaves of wheat. The second group was then ordered to come forward to the edge of the grave – this group consisted of young men and women, including my sister Libe Gesik. These people addressed the policemen, whom they knew personally, begging them for mercy, but the latter turned a deaf ear to their pleas and beat them brutally with their rifle butts, showing the victims that there was no place for mercy here.… [T]hey shot them. My sister saw me… and said "Be well and goodbye, Yudele." The third group was dumbstruck at the horrible sight, and did not offer any resistance. When the massacre was over, a Gestapo officer stepped down into the pit to check who was still alive, and finished off the survivors with additional pistol shots.… We were still wondering [what would happen to us], … when the order rang out: "Tamp down the bodies and cover the pit with earth!"… On the next day, the police chief said: "Such things won't be repeated; this was an act of punishment for the failure to fully comply with the latest order about the kontributsia ['ransom' in money or valuables]." … Two days after the massacre, a rumor went up that, during the night, the police had awoken twenty non-Jews and ordered them to dig a ditch at the cemetery; that ditch was large enough to accommodate all of the town's Jews. The police realized that the existence of the ditch was an open secret to the local Jews, and so, in order to calm them down, they announced that the ditch had been dug for military purposes – to store fuel.… Early in the morning of the 13th of Cheshvan in the year 5702 [November 13, 1941], the town was surrounded by huge forces of the Gestapo and [auxiliary] police, which had been mobilized from all over the surrounding area. An order was issued requiring everyone – from the youngest to the oldest, including the infirm – to assemble. Those who tried to hide were found and shot on the spot. All the local Jews gathered in the town center and stood in rows. Gestapo men passed along the rows and picked some men, who were ordered to stand aside, in a separate row. We sensed that they were separating those destined to live from those doomed to die, but we did not know which group was destined for life.... Some individuals moved between the rows more than once, and were therefore killed. As a result of the selection, 150 able-bodied men were picked, and we were ordered to be ready in five minutes' time. After standing by the side of the road, we had to get into the cars that were waiting for us. We were told that we would be taken to work, and that our families would join us on the next day. The line of five cars moved away, while our families remained standing in rows, awaiting their fate. As we were passing the village of Zagorie, 4 kilometers from our town, we heard the sound of machine gun fire. "That's it!", we broke down in tears…. We would later learn that, shortly after our departure, they were taken to the cemetery in rows and murdered there.