Prużana Area Related Communities
ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
RESEARCH & COLLECTIONS
COMMEMORATION
EDUCATION & E-LEARNING
MUSEUMS & EXHIBITIONS
RIGHTEOUS
Murder story of Pruzana Jews in the Prużana Area
Murder Site
Prużana Area
Poland
Shortly after the occupation of Prużana (according to some testimonies, on July 10, 1941), about 15-18 Jews were assembled and shot about two kilometers from the town. Some testimonies indicate that the other Jews remained ignorant of the victims’ fate for the first ten days after the massacre.
untoldStories.relatedResources
Resources.tabstitle.written Testimonies
Olga Gelfand, a doctor, who lived in Prużana during the war, testifies:
On July 10, after the [German] army passed through the town, the Gestapo troops arrived, came, and what began was indescribable. First of all, they seized eighteen Jews and shot them two kilometers from the town. We learnt about the fate of these unfortunate people only ten days later, when a dog dragged in the arm of a doctor with the red cross on the sleeve.
Ehrenburg, Ilya and Grossman, Wassili. The black book : the ruthless murder of Jews by German-Fascist invaders throughout the temporarily-occupied regions of the Soviet Union and in the death camps of Poland during the war of 1941-1945 . New York : Holocaust Library, 1981, p. 206.
Saul Nitzberg, who was born in Prużana in 1925, testifies:
When they [the Germans] came to Poland to round up the inmates of the ghetto of Prużana, they selected 15 people on either the first or the second day and shot them about a mile from the locality. One of the victims was a local dentist, who was 75 years old at the time, a very gentle and kindly man with grey hair. Why they picked him, I’ll never know, but he was one of the 15 people that they killed.
YVA O.62 / 225
Prużana Area
Murder Site
Poland
52.557;24.466