1 Killing site(s)
Jerzy C., born in 1928: "I remember the moment when my father and I went to the site of the shooting after the front had passed. It was a few days after the event. I saw the bodies of Jewish men and women lying in the forest, already decomposing, and the smell was unbearable. They were arranged in a circle, lying next to each other. We didn’t get any closer because of the stench. I think there were around 20 Jews; it was quite a large pile. Later, someone buried them. I’m certain they’re still there, as no one has ever exhumed them." (Testimony N°YIU516P, interviewed in Kamieńczyk, on September 25, 2015)
"-9 Jews shot in September 1939.
-13 Jews shot on 18.2.1943.
-120 Poles shot on 29.5.1943 in the forest behind the village of Skuszew.
-9 Poles shot on 18.7.1943 at Puste Laki, Kamienczyk municipality."
[Court Inquiries about executions and mass graves in districts, provinces, camps and ghettos = Ankieta Sądów Grodzkich, 1945 Reel 13 File 44]
Kamieńczyk, formerly known as Kamieniec, is a village in Poland situated in the Masovian Voivodeship, within Wyszków County. Located at the confluence of the Bug and Liwiec rivers, it lies approximately 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) east of Wyszków. In 1929, the village had a population of 1,185 residents.
According to a local witness interviewed by Yahad, the Jewish community in Kamieńczyk before World War II consisted of 22 or 23 families, primarily involved in business. There were two bakeries and two cobbler’s workshops operated by Jewish residents. The village also had a synagogue and a mikveh, and Jewish children attended both a local Jewish school and the regular school alongside their Polish peers. Since the community did not have its own cemetery, they used the one located in nearby Wyszków.
Kamieńczyk was occupied by German forces on September 10, 1939. Prior to the occupation, all Jewish residents fled to Jadów in hopes of escaping the conflict. The fighting left much of Kamieńczyk in ruins, with around 160 houses, including most Jewish homes, burned down in September 1939. As a result, the Jewish inhabitants did not return. The Jews from Kamieńczyk were eventually confined to the ghetto in Jadów, from where they were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. Only one Jewish resident from Kamieńczyk is known to have survived the Holocaust.
On the same day that German forces entered the area, a group of Jews from Wyszków, who had been hiding in bushes near the Bug River, mistakenly believed it was safe to reveal themselves. They emerged to greet the soldiers but were quickly surrounded by SS and Wehrmacht troops, taken about 1 kilometer into the forest, and executed. Archival sources record the execution of 9 Jews, though a witness later recalled seeing around 20 bodies in various stages of decomposition. These bodies were initially buried in the forest but were later exhumed and reburied in the Jewish cemetery in Jadów.
In a separate event on February 18, 1943, 13 Jews were shot while hiding in a forest bunker.
For more information about the persecution of Jews in Kamieńczyk, please follow the corresponding profile.
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