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Murder story of Brześć nad Bugiem Jews in the Brest Fortress
Murder Site
Brest Fortress
Poland
According to some documents, on June 23, 1941, the second day of the war, at the very beginning of the occupation, several dozen Jewish men were rounded up. Prior to their shooting, the men were held for five days in the summer heat with no water or food. There are some testimonies that identify Fort 2 of the Brest Fortress as the shooting site, while the Dubinka fort is mentioned in other sources as the possible site.
Related Resources
Written Testimonies
Osher Zisman testified:
In the beginning of July, 1941, the Germans began to take the Jews to "work." In point of fact they took all captured Jews to the Brest Fort and kept them there in terrible conditions. In the July heat the people were not given water or bread for five days; then they were shot. One Jew survived and he said that when he crawled out of the grave, there were many living and half-living people left, since only the first rows had been struck by the bullets. When the Germans began to fill in the graves with earth and hot lime, many of the Jews were still alive.
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. 213.
P. Moskarenko, who lived in Brześć nad Bugiem during the war years, testified:
In 1941, as soon as Brest was occupied, the Germans went from apartment to apartment and collected the Jewish men who had come [to Brest] for work from the East [of the USSR]. All of them, more than 20 people, were shot by the Fascists in Fort 2 [of the Best Fortress].
Raisa Chernoglazova, ed., The Tragedy of the Belarus Jews (1941-1943). Collection of Articles and Documents, Minsk, 1997, p. 184 (Russian)
Brest Fortress
fort
Murder Site
Poland
52.099;23.702