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| On September 11, 1942, Jews from the Stolin ghetto were led 2-3 km outside the city and murdered there. |
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| The went on the horse wagon and the trip took the entire day - 60 km. |
My grandmother worked in Stolin as doctor in early twenties. My entire family moved from Pinsk to Stolin and my fathers dog "Barabas" disappeared on the way. The went on the horse wagon and the trip took the entire day - 60 km.
Before the war, the region of Stolin was part of Poland. About 5,000 Jews lived in Stolin in 1939. They were tailors, carpenters, shopkeepers, and clockmakers. There were several synagogues; one of them was wooden, another brick. The rabbis of Stolin (a Hasidic dynasty) were well-known among the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. There was also a cinema, a soda-water factory, and hotels.
Almost all Stolin Jews were murdered during Holocaust. In a location on the outskirts of Stolin, known as Stasino (or Dolin or Zatisha), lay buried the remains of the Jewish population of Stolin murdered by the Nazis during Holocaust.
Eight thousand Jews were shot to death by the German SS unit (Einsatzgruppen?), 3 km north of the city, at the edge of the forest and a long walking distance from the center of the Stolin ghetto.
Witness
Soviet archives
The Germans and the policemen said that the Jews had to undress and to lie in the grave, face down. After the shooting, they told me to take the clothes, put them on my cart, and bring them to the town. Deposition of Yakov R., a Belarusian requisitioned to shoot Jews in Stolin, to the Soviet Extraordinary commisssion; RG-22.002M.7081-90/34]
German archives
We came into the ghetto to bring a group of a hundred Jews. The policemen and the Germans took them to the airfield outside the city. Its construction was not completed. The airfield was located 2-3km from Stolin. Large mass graves were dug directly behind it. Deposition of Petr S., a Belarusian policeman and a shooter during the liquidation of the ghetto in Stolin; B162-496
Stolin was occupied by the Germans from July 1941. In August 1941, many Jewish refugees – especially women and children - from the nearby town of David-Gorodok came to Stolin.
A ghetto was created in May 1942, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. About 7,000 Jews lived in this small and unhealthy area, along the Bank River. The liquidation of the ghetto was conducted on September 11, 1942 by a squadron of German cavalry, the local police and the SD. The shooting took place near the airfield, in a large ditch. The belongings of the Jews were collected and then selected by local people under the control of the German authorities. I Remember Nothing More!
