Białowieża (Belavezha, Bialowies) | Podlaskie Voivodeship

A house where the German occupiers held a group of Jewish youths, aged 18 to 20, as forced laborers tasked with repairing the gravel road between Hajnówka and Białowieża. ©Markel Redondo/Yahad – In Unum Aleksy D., born in 1923: "Poles, Jews, Belarusians, and Ukrainians all lived in Białowieża before the war. The Jews were merchants but also artisans, such as tailors, shoemakers, and brewers." ©Markel Redondo/Yahad – In Unum Aleksy D., born in 1923: "The Jews knew that the Germans posed a threat to them, so anyone who had family in other parts of Poland fled Białowieża even before the Germans arrived in the town." ©Markel Redondo/Yahad – In Unum Aleksy D., born in 1923: "There were two Jewish shops on my street, belonging to Wolkostawski and Mejer. I transported the whole Wolkostawski family as far as a Jewish village beyond Kamieniec, helping them to escape." ©Markel Redondo/Yahad – In Unum Włodzimierz D., born in 1927: "Children of all nationalities went to school together. I remember a beautiful Jewish schoolmate named Tabacznik. She had dark curly hair. Her father owned a household goods store." ©Markel Redondo/Yahad – In Unum Włodzimierz D., born in 1927: “I saw the Germans take a Jewish woman and her two daughters into a house where they were first roughly bitten by dogs, then sexually abused by the Germans.” ©Markel Redondo/Yahad – In Unum Włodzimierz D., born in 1927: "A Jewish woman named Sarenka, an inn owner, managed to survive the war. She worked as a maid for the Germans, who did not realize she was Jewish." ©Markel Redondo/Yahad – In Unum Włodzimierz D., born in 1927: "Many people were killed here, in ‘Jagiellońskie’, including Jews. I know a group of young Jewish workers was brought here and shot. Two men managed to escape." ©Markel Redondo/Yahad – In Unum A wooden monument depicting an eagle bears the following inscription: ‘In this place in the years of 1941-1943, the Nazi occupants murdered 486 inhabitants of Białowieża and its surroundings. Honor their memory.’ ©Markel Redondo/Yahad – In Unum

Destruction of Jews and non-Jews in Białowieża

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Jagiellońskie Gravel Pit
Memorials:
Yes
Period of occupation:
1941-1944
Number of victims:
486

Witness interview

Aleksy D., born in 1923: "Before the war, Białowieża was a true melting pot of Poles, Jews, Belarusians, and Ukrainians. We also lived alongside the Bałachowcy—former soldiers of General Bułak-Bałachowicz who had settled in the Forest after the 1920 war to work in the timber industry and the local factories. Within this community, the Jewish families were our merchants and skilled artisans. You could find Jewish tailors, shoemakers, and brewers everywhere. On my street there were two Jewish-owned shops run by Mejer and Wolkostawski.

As the war approached, a sense of dread took hold. Jews understood the grave threat the Germans posed. People with relatives elsewhere in Poland decided to flee Białowieża before the German troops reached the town. I remember helping where I could. I personally transported the entire Wolkostawski family all the way to a Jewish village past Kamieniec to help them escape. Tragically, those who remained behind or had nowhere to go were eventually rounded up by the Germans and deported to the death camp at Auschwitz." (Witness N°YIU334P, interviewed in Białowieża, on May 19, 2014)

German archives

"Report from the 3rd Company of Police Battalion 222, signed by Oberleutnant of the Schutzpolizei and Company Commander Riebel, to Police Battalion 322, dated August 10, 1941. On August 10, 1941, the 3rd Company shot 77 Jews in Bialowiece [today Białowieża]." [B162-6464 p.6; Preparatory file for the trial of the members of Pol. Bat. 322 and the Reichsjägermeister regarding the massacres of Jews, Poles, and Russians committed in 1941/42.]

Historical note

Białowieża is a village in northeastern Poland, in Podlaskie Voivodeship, Hajnówka County. It is located 16 km (9.9 mi) southeast of Hajnówka, 75 km (46.6 mi) southeast of Białystok, 233 km (144.7 mi) northeast of Warsaw. The village lies in the middle of the Białowieża Forest, to which it gave its name.

Jewish settlement in Białowieża began in the early 19th century under Russian rule. At that time, the name Białowieża referred only to the tsars’ hunting estate, while residents lived in surrounding villages. Jewish families settled mainly in Stoczek, which is now the town’s main thoroughfare, Waszkiewicz Street. In the interwar period, the Jewish community expanded into nearby areas such as Zastaw, Podolany, and Krzyże, all of which are now part of Białowieża.

The local economy thrived through their contributions: Jewish residents operated grocery and iron shops, haberdasheries, and beerhouses, while others served the community as tailors, blacksmiths, hairdressers, and wood valuators. Religious and social life was centered on Stoczek Street, marked by a wooden synagogue built around 1910 and a private prayer house established after the First World War. There was no Jewish cemetery in the town. Jews from Białowieża were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Narewka. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, the community’s infrastructure grew to include a large school and a bathhouse complex. Education was a shared experience, with Jewish children attending general schools alongside their Polish and Belarusian peers, supplemented by religious instruction from private teachers, known as Melameds, and at the cheder. Notably, the community was led by a rabbi who would later become a renowned scholar in Great Britain, earning a place in the Encyclopaedia Judaica.

By 1937, the Jewish community in Białowieża and surrounding areas reached its demographic peak with approximately 4,000 residents, comprising more than a half of the total local population.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

Under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Białowieża was occupied by Soviet forces in 1939, subsequently becoming an official part of the Belastok Region within the Belarusian SSR. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Białowieża fell under German occupation.

On August 2, 1941, Police Battalion 322 transported 36 people suspected of communist involvement to Biały Lasek in present-day Belarus. This group, which included 5 Jewish men and 1 Jewish woman from Białowieża, was shot there by the battalion members.

According to archival records, in August 1941, the Jewish residents of Białowieża were rounded up and transferred to the ghettos in Kobryń and Prużany, located in present-day Belarus. During the transfer to Prużany, on August 10, 1941, 77 local Jewish men and boys aged between 16 and 45 were selected and taken to the forest near the village of Podolany, which was then part of the Jagiellońskie forestry management area and is currently a district of Białowieża. Upon arrival, these individuals were shot at a gravel pit by members of Police Battalion 322.

Based on an interview conducted by a Yahad team in 2014, local resident Włodzimierz D., born in 1927, recounted further events that occurred during the deportation of the Jewish residents from Białowieża. He testified that a group consisting mostly of Jews was forced into a house in the Pogorzelec area and burned alive, while a group of Jewish women, children, and the elderly were shot in a barn within the same neighborhood.

Włodzimierz D. also described the fate of approximately 20 young Jewish men who were initially excluded from the deportations to be used as forced laborers for the repair of the road connecting Hajnówka and Białowieża. Later, this group was transported by truck to the Jagiellońskie gravel pit to be shot. According to the account, only two men from this group managed to escape the site and survive the war.

Archival sources indicate that between 1941 and 1943, a total of 486 people, including Poles, Belarusians, Russians, and Jews from the Białowieża area were shot by the Germans at the Jagiellońskie gravel pit. Today, the killing site is commemorated with a monument.

Between January 28 and February 1, 1943, a total of 9,170 people held in the Prużany ghetto were deported to the Auschwitz killing center, while those from the Kobryń ghetto were killed in mass shooting operations at Brona Góra.

For more information about the killing of Jews from Białowieża in Kobryn and Pruzhany please follow the corresponding profile.

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