Murder Story of Święta Wola Jews at the Święta Wola Railway Line

... On August 5, 1941, a SS German unit made up of about forty men came to Święta Wola from Telechany. They proceeded to arrest all the Jewish men and round them up in a single spot, under German guard. During the night of August 5-6, 1941, the rest of the Jewish population (i.e., the women and children) were also arrested and rounded up in the People's House (the Club). At dawn, all the Jews were ordered to pay a ransom in gold and American currency. After the Jews had collected all the valuables, the local police assisted [the Germans] in sending all the [Jewish] men, in groups of about twenty, [to the area] behind the Święta Wola station, near the narrow-gauge railway. They were forced to enter a pit that had been dug during the Soviet period, whereupon they were shot with rifles and submachine guns. The workers were then ordered to cover the pit with a thin layer of soil. After the shooting of this group, the second group was forced into the pit, over the buried bodies [of their predecessors], and shot in the same way. Three groups of Jewish men were shot in this pit, about sixty in total. On the way to the shooting site, the Germans mercilessly abused the elderly people who found it hard to walk and were lagging behind, beating them with sticks and rifle butts. On the morning of August 6, 1941, the women and children were transferred to the barracks near the construction [sic, probably building] of the airfield. Then, the Germans ordered the workers brought over from Święta Wola and Malaya Gat' [sic] to dig three [additional] square pits at a distance of some 200 meters northwest of the first pit, near the narrow-gauge railway to Borowicze. The women and children were then taken in groups of about forty to those pits, ordered to strip to their underwear, forced into the pits, and shot dead. The Germans simply fired at the crowd with rifles and submachine guns. As a result of this shooting, many [of the victims] were merely wounded – but they, too, were covered with soil, along with the dead ones. After the first group had been covered with soil, the second group was brought over and forced into the pit, atop the lightly covered bodies of their predecessors; they were then shot in the same manner. Heartrending cries could be heard from the pits and from the barracks, which were located no more than 50 meters from the pits. Many of the workers involved in this job could not stand the scene, and tried to escape from the site of the massacre. The Germans caught them, beat them with rifle butts, and forced them to resume their work – burying the bodies. In this way, more than 300 people – the dead and the wounded, women and children (including some still living babies) – were shot and buried in the three pits. Upon the Germans' orders, the clothes and shoes of the shot women and children were collected at the Club. There was a Jewish woman, a refugee from Poland, whose last name was Perets, staying at the residence of Leyba Chernoglazov, a Jewish woodworker. She had given birth three days previously. After the shooting of all the Jews, a German came to her. He was accompanied by Pavlina Anatskaya, a German woman and a permanent resident of Święta Wola. The latter told the [Jewish] woman, who was still in bed, to "get ready to die," whereupon the German man murdered the woman and her baby in bed, in the presence of the aforementioned Anatskaya....

... At dawn, one day in August 1941, I do not remember the exact date, a policeman and two Germans armed with rifles went through our village and forced everyone to take up their shovels and go to work behind the Zavirye Ravine, near a pit that had been used for gasoline storage during the Soviet period. In this pit, I saw about twenty murdered Jewish men. All of them were dressed, and their skull bones were broken. At first, we began to cover the murdered people with soil, but at that moment the policemen and the Germans brought in another group of about twenty Jewish men. These Jews were forced to stand atop the barely covered bodies in the pit, in rows of three, the rows facing one another. They were shot with submachine guns and rifles. A soon as we had covered the murdered people with a bit of soil, a third group was brought in and shot in the same way. Among the miserable victims, there were infirm and elderly individuals, who were unable to walk. The Germans beat them with rifle butts and sticks. They also beat those peasants who could not bear watching the scene, refused to cover the bodies, and wanted to leave. The Germans themselves did the shooting, while the policemen, together with the Germans, were only escorting the Jews [to the pit]. The Germans ordered three [additional] square pits to be dug for the women and the children, at a distance of 50-200 meters from that spot. From afar, we saw them being forced into the pits and fired upon with rifles and submachine guns. Terrible shouts and cries could be heard from there. The women had to remove their outer garments. Upon the orders of the Święta Wola burgomaster [sic], the clothes were taken to the People's House. We covered the murdered women and children in the pits, as well. The women and the children were shot in stages (in two groups). Some 100 Jewish men were shot on that day, while the number of the [murdered] women and children was much higher than that. Some thirty people were involved in burying the bodies on that day....

The Description 1)The cemetery marked as #1 lies some 400 meters northwest of the Święta Wola station, near the narrow-gauge railway, at the point where the line to Borowicze begins. The size of the grave is 15x3 meters, and the number of people buried in it is sixty. West of the village of Malaya Gat [sic] 2)The graves marked as # 2, 3, and 4 lie some 250 meters northwest of the first grave, 70 meters east of the narrow-gauge railway line to Borowicze. The graves are spaced 2 meters apart. Their size is 4x4 meters. The number of people buried in them is about 265. The plan was drawn by… on April 12, 1945.