Smolarka Related Communities
# Follow us
Languages
English
עברית
Русский
español
Deutsch
Français
ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
RESEARCH & COLLECTIONS
COMMEMORATION
EDUCATION & E-LEARNING
MUSEUMS & EXHIBITIONS
RIGHTEOUS
Murder Story of Bereza Kartuska Jews in Smolarka
Murder Site
Smolyarka
Poland
In October, according to some sources on October 16, 1942 inmates of Ghetto A, guarded by police and Gestapo men, were taken toward Smolarka village, seven kilometers from Bereza Kartuska. Some testimonies report that about 50 non-Jewish Soviet activists were taken along with the Jews. The murder site was located 1-1.5 kilometers from Smolarka village, close to the Moscow-Warsaw road. Five large pits had been prepared in advance; some testimonies report that local residents had been forced to dig them. The victims were taken to the murder site and shot, the men, women, and children together. According to various documents the number of victims was between 1,000 and 2,500.
Related Resources
Soviet Reports
Iosif Shidlovskiy, who was born in 1920 in Bereza Kartuska and served as a policeman there during the war, testified:
Around October 1942 the same … arranged the second mass shooting of about 3,000 Jews; other victims were 50 NKVD employees and a number of Communist Party and Soviet activists. Then, for the first time, I took part in the surrounding of Jewish homes. We police and Gestapo men took all the Jews toward the village of Smolarka (seven kilometers from Kartuz Bereza) and all of them were shot 1 to 1.5 kilometers from the village. I do not know the details of the shooting because we policemen were not taken to the shooting site. But I heard that local residents buried them. In that case, as in the first one [at the Bronna Góra station] the men, women, and children were shot together.
GABO, BREST 514-1-289 copy YVA M.41 / 1009
Smolyarka
Murder Site
Poland
52.532;24.981
Photos
Opening of a mass grave of the Jews from Bereza Kartuska, probably in the vicinity of Smolyarka village
YVA P.21 / 254
Plan of mass graves of Jews from Bereza Kartuska in the vicinity of Smolyarka village
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-83-9 copy YVA M.33 / JM/20001