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Murder Story of Widze Jews in Lake Maruga
Murder Site
Lake Maruga
Poland
In late June 1941, a group of people (estimates of their number vary from 50 to 80, and one source goes as high as 200), most of them Jews, were shot by local policemen on the southern shore of Lake Maruga, less than a kilometer northwest of the center of Widze. This massacre appears to have been an initiative by the newly established local police force, whose members were recruited from among the Polish, Belorussian, and Lithuanian population of the area. However, the Germans approved of this initiative, and may even have encouraged the perpetrators. In early July, the Germans, with the aid of the police, drove a large group of Jewish residents of Widze (possibly numbering as many as 200 people – men, women, and children) to Lake Maruga. The Jews were brutally beaten and tortured both on their way to the lake and on its shore. Then, having subjected their victims to considerable abuse, the perpetrators forced them to undress and drove them into the water. Many people drowned in the lake, while some were beaten and tortured to death.
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From the memoir of Noah Swirski:
Every Friday, at nightfall, they would take Jews out of their homes, escort them to Lake Maruga, and shoot them there.
I remember an incident that took place three days after the German occupation of Widze. I was not working on that day, having hurt my foot.... I stayed at home and did not go to work. That very night, three policemen armed with rifles showed up at our house. One of them was my school friend Budrevich, who told me to go with him to the police precinct.... I told him that I was unable to walk.... [O]ne of the policemen said: 'You are lucky, you are staying at home,' and he convinced the other two to leave me alone....
However, after leaving our house, they took two of our neighbors, Hirsh Bernatar and Yosef Melman, and escorted them elsewhere. Later, I would learn that they took away hundreds of Widze Jews that night. They led them to Lake Maruga and shot them there. It was one of the first days of the German occupation of Widze!... A short while later, the Germans set up a command post in the town.
Yitzhak Alperovits, Gershon Weiner, eds., Sefer Vidz: Ayara beḥayeha uvekhilyona, Tel-Aviv, 1998, pp. 169-170 (Hebrew).
From the memoir of Shleime Jechilczyk:
As early as the first night [of the German occupation], several hundred Jews were picked (people said that they numbered 200). They were taken under heavy guard to Lake Maruga, where they were brutally shot. On the next morning, some Jews, my father among them, were taken to the murder site and ordered to bury the dead Jews....
This massacre was carried out by the bandits of Widze, with encouragement and active assistance on the part of the Germans.
Yitzhak Alperovits, Gershon Weiner, eds., Sefer Vidz: Ayara beḥayeha uvekhilyona, Tel-Aviv, 1998, pp. 165-166 (Hebrew).
From the memoir of Shleime-Ruvn Feygl:
On one of the first nights after the German occupation of Widze, the local murderers decided to annihilate a certain number of Jewish men. In a single night, they dragged some 80 men out of their homes and took them to the police precinct [komendatur]. Two of my uncles were among the detainees.... At daybreak, the murderers led the assembled Jews to the edge of the town, near Lake Maruga, and there, in the marshes, they shot them all.
Early in the morning, the murderers rounded up a group of Jews, ordered them to take shovels, and led them to the site of the massacre... to cover the dead with earth.
Yitzhak Alperovits, Gershon Weineri, eds., Sefer Vidz: Ayara beḥayeha uvekhilyona, Tel-Aviv, 1998, pp. 270-272 (Hebrew).
Lake Maruga
lake
Murder Site
Poland
55.393;26.634