“We were led to a clearing (…). The clearing was not as overgrown as it is today. (…) Diagonally through the clearing two pits had been dug out. The one closer to the track was 8 meters long, 6 meters wide and over 2 meters deep. Almost at the same angle, at the other end of the clearing, there was the other pit of the same depth, 6 meters wide and 15 meters long. Between them, there was empty space. (…) Around the clearing, but for the corner where the tracks crossed, many groups of Jews were standing or sitting. I am unable to count them, because they were standing among the trees. (…) There were women in the crowd, men and children, mothers holding their children. Whether those were only Polish Jews I cannot say. Later they told us that those came from Zagórowo. I met a dressmaker and a shopkeeper from Konin, but their names escape me. The track, the clearing and the woods around were crowded with the Gestapo. (…) At the bottom of the greater pit I saw a thick layer of burnt lime. How thick it was I do not know. In the smaller pit, there were no lime. The Gestapo told us that they have surrounded the clearing and if we tried to ran we would be shot. Then they ordered the Jews to undress. First those standing next to the greater pit. They ordered them to come to the empty space in the center and then jump into the greater pit. Some mothers jumped into the pit holding their babies, some threw only the babies inside, some threw the babies away and jumped into the pit alone. Some crawled at the Gestapos’ feet, licking their shoes, their rifles’ butts. We had to walk among the Jews standing around the graves and pick up the scattered clothes and shoes. I saw how the Gestapo would walk up to the heaps of watches, rings, and jewelry in general that we had gathered and fill their pockets. Seeing that, some of us and I with them stopped putting valuables in a heap but threw watches and jewelry further into the forest.

“At some point the Gestapo told the Jews not to undress, because the grave was already full. You could only see people’s heads crowded close to one another. Those of the Jews that had already undressed were thrown into the pits on top of the people gathered inside. (…) A truck came from the road and stopped by the clearing. There were four like vats on the truck, I noticed. Next the Germans set up an engine, probably a pump, connected it with one of the vats, and two of the Gestapo hauled a hose from the pump to the grave. The engine was started and the two Germans poured something over the people in the pit. I think it was water. It looked like water, but I am not sure. As they pumped, the hose was switched from one vat to another. When the lime begun to slake, the people down there started to boil alive. Suddenly, there was a horrible screaming and wailing of the Jews. We, sitting by the heaps of their garments, tore the clothes and put them in our ears. There was more screaming from the ones awaiting their execution. This lasted two hours, perhaps more. 

“The following day in the morning they ordered us to cover the greater pit with some earth. The mass of people inside as if shrunk. Their bodies were packed so tight together that they were still upright, their heads tipped in different directions. We did not cover the grave entirely. There were arms of some of the dead still above the fresh earth. We were interrupted by the arrival of more trucks, onto which we had to load the segregated things. (…) In the afternoon a car that looked like an ambulance, dark gray, door in the back, came to the clearing several times and dead bodies, of men, women, children, poured out of it. There were Jews among them as well. This gray auto had come and gone three times while I was there, in one hour intervals. Whether it came back again after I had been taken from the clearing I do not know. Dead bodies that poured out of that car were coupled together as if in convulsive embraces, contorted poses, with their faces as if chewed. I saw one with his teeth soaked in another’s jaw. Others had their fingers or noses gnawed at. Many of them convulsively held themselves by the hand. Family members, perhaps. We had to tear those couples apart, chopping off their arms, legs or other parts should that be necessary. Next we had to place those bodies in the smaller pit, in layers, tight, head now this now that way. The limbs that we had chopped off we had to stick among the bodies. Three such layers were laid while I was there, and one car was still waiting to unload. (…) The bodies brought in the gray van were of those that had been gassed. The inside of the car and the people’s clothes smelled of gas. 

“I remember from the clearing, from the massacre of the Jews – one of the Gestapo took a small child away from its mother and crushed its head on the side of the car. The mother would not stop screaming and he threw the remains of the baby at her, so that the brain covered her mouth. Then he took lime or plaster and smeared it across her mouth. They did the same to other women who were screaming. I saw one of the Germans take a young, pretty Jewess, tear off her dress and underwear, bind her hands behind her back and hang, by those hands, from a tree. He then cut her right breast into slices with a puukko, opened her stomach and rummaged inside. She died on that tree.” (http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/article/kazimierz-biskupi/13,sites-of-martyrdom/12581,las-krazel-the-site-of-the-execution-of-a-few-thousand-people-of-jewish-descent/)

This is a picture that my wife has of her great grandmother, Yenta Shmietana Prost, from the town of Golina, one of the Jews murdered at Kazamierz Biskupi: