Murder story of Kosow Poleski Jews in the Marczewszczyzna Castle Area

On August 25, 1942, the population was herded into the ghetto and into Marczewszczyzna [Marchevshchina] Castle, which was located 2 kilometers from the town. The ghetto was cordoned off by a punitive squad of gendarmes and policemen. The town residents were forbidden to leave their homes. All the ghetto inmates were loaded onto trucks and taken toward Marczewszczyzna Castle. A pit had been dug in advance at a spot 200 meters from the castle, and the inmates of the castle and the ghetto were taken there. The eyewitness Krupinskiy, who was a driver, testifies that, during the transportation, the people were piled onto the trucks like so many logs. Upon reaching the shooting site, the people were ordered to take off their clothes, and they would be beaten and tortured if they failed to comply. Afterward, the doomed victims were forced to step onto a plank that had been placed over the pit. At that moment, they would be fired upon with machine and submachine guns. Some of the doomed people stood inside the pit, and they had to arrange the bodies in rows. More than 1,400 innocent Soviet civilians were shot on that day.

In summer 1942, I do not remember the exact month, the Germans carried out a pogrom against the Jewish population. Prior to that, all the Jews had been rounded up and surrounded with barbed wire. The commandant's office then came up with a plan to murder the Jews. Upon the Germans' orders, peasants from nearby villages dug a large pit, which was 20 meters long and 20 meters wide, near the Marczewszczyzna Estate [sic]. Fifteen SS trucks were mobilized to transport the Jews from the town to the pit. I, too, was forced by the Germans to work as a driver. I, too, transported the Jews from the town to the pit. The policemen had arranged all the Jews in rows behind the barbed wire. The Germans singled out the skilled workers, carpenters, shoemakers, etc. These were separated from the rest of the Jews and taken to Słonim to work. The Germans forced the rest of the Jews onto the trucks and ordered them to lie face down atop each other, more than 20 people in each truck. They were beating the people while doing it. Those [victims] who turned their heads aside would be killed with rifle butt blows to the head. I drove from the town to the pit three times, and each time my truck was full of Jews. At the pit, the Germans would immediately order the Jews to get off the truck and lie on the ground face down. They would then force a group of 20 Jews to strip naked and jump into the pit. Those reluctant to do so would be killed on the spot. One of the Germans beat a Jew, I do not remember his last name, on the head with his rifle butt, and pulled out his gold teeth while he was still alive. The naked Jews were ordered to lie inside the pit in rows, and were then shot in the head with rifles. As soon as one group of Jews was killed, the Germans would shoot the next batch of 20 Jews. The Germans went on shooting the Jews throughout the day, from morning until nightfall, and the pit became filled with naked bodies lying face down atop each other. In the course of that day, the Germans shot, and threw into the pit, a total of more than 1,000 people. They took the clothes of the victims for themselves. The pit with the murdered Jews remained uncovered for a week. The smell of the decomposing bodies reached the town. Then, upon the Germans’ orders, local residents covered the bodies with soil. However, two days later the victims' blood seeped through the soil. The Germans then ordered local residents to bring sand and cover the pit with sand and soil. Their orders were carried out.