Bronnaya Gora is a site of mass murders committed by the German occupation authorities against the peaceful population, predominantly Jews, in 1942–1943 during World War II near the Bronnaya Gora railway station in the Berezovsky district of Brest region.

“A deserted forest clearing. The autumn wind swirls the yellowed leaves, bending solitary young birches to the ground. Here it is, Bronnaya Gora – the place of death of fifty thousand innocent people. At first glance, nothing reveals this place cursed by people. It is hard to imagine that the trees and bushes were planted here for camouflage, that they literally grow on human bones. However, upon careful inspection of the area, one immediately finds traces of the monstrous tragedy that unfolded here in 1942. The birches and bushes are planted on leveled burial mounds. Here and there remain fragments of barbed wire, clothing, women’s scarves and hairpins, children’s shoes, wallets, charred bones.”

This is how Brzhovsky, a correspondent of “Komsomolskaya Pravda,” who visited here shortly after the liberation of the Berezovsky district by Soviet Army units, wrote about the death factory at Bronnaya Gora. The journalist was right: Bronnaya Gora – this beautiful corner of the Berezovsky land – was turned into a place of death for tens of thousands of local citizens and became a place cursed by people.

The gravediggers’ shovels had thoroughly churned the blood-soaked earth. Years increasingly distance us from those terrible days. Every spring and summer, the clearing where the burial site was located blooms richly with flowers. But the flowers do not bring joy to the residents of Bronnaya Gora and nearby villages passing by. They know well how much human sorrow and suffering this beautiful clearing with birches and flowers has witnessed.

In spring 1942, this clearing, located 400 meters north of the Bronnaya Gora station, was surrounded on all sides by barbed wire. At a distance of 150 meters from the wire, at all approaches, a poster appeared in Russian and German: “Caution! Danger to life! No entry beyond this point! Patrols shoot without warning!”

For a long time, residents could not understand why Bronnaya Gora was so heavily guarded. Why soldiers with SS insignia shot anyone who accidentally wandered here.

Only residents brought from nearby villages were allowed into the forbidden area to dig pits. Explosions were heard, columns of earth flew up. Many believed the Germans were conducting military construction work here. They did not know what the pits were for, nor the people digging them.

…From the memoirs of a resident of the village of Zarechye, Yatskevich:

“In spring 1942, I received an order from the village elder to report with a shovel and food supplies for two days at the disposal of the Gestapo at Bronnaya Gora.

On the second day, I was there. Another 25 people from our village arrived as well. There were also people from other surrounding villages, about 300 in total. The Gestapo took us to a site located 400 meters from the railway branch leading to military warehouses. There we were ordered to dig pits.

On the second and third days, new groups of people arrived. By my count, the number of diggers exceeded 600. We worked from sunrise until dark. A place for sleeping was allocated on the site and in barracks – German sentries were everywhere. Thus, we worked for five days and dug five huge and deep pits. The pit where people from Zarechye, Ogorodniki, Strigini, Sokolovo, and other villages worked was 45 meters long, 7–8 meters wide, and 4.5 meters deep. No one knew what these pits were for.”

But in May 1942, five trains with Soviet people arrived at the Bronnaya Gora railway station. The first came from the Bereza-Kartuzskaya station. Each of the 16 wagons contained no fewer than 200 people. Then trains arrived from the stations of Pinsk, Kobrin, Brest… Due to overcrowding, many died in the wagons, but the bodies were not removed.

From May to September 1942, pits were dug in the tract measuring 25 to 50 meters long, 10–12 meters wide, and 4 meters deep. The pits were surrounded by barbed wire, and the surrounding area was carefully guarded by members of the SS and SD, who allowed only residents brought from nearby villages to dig the pits.

The first train arrived from the Bereza-Kartuzskaya station, consisting of several wagons with guards and ammunition and 16 overcrowded wagons with Jews – no fewer than 200 people in each. All were prisoners of the “B” ghetto in Bereza.

The second train consisted of 46 wagons and arrived from the stations of Drogichin, Yanovo, and Gorodets. The vast majority in the wagons were Jews. As with the first train, the wagons were extremely overcrowded – no fewer than 200 people in each.

The third train with 40 wagons, overcrowded with Jews, arrived from Brest.

The fourth train of 18 wagons came from the stations of Pinsk and Kobrin. All the wagons contained Jews.

The fifth train arrived from Brest. All its 13 wagons were filled with prisoners from the Brest prison – Jews, Poles, and Belarusians.

All wagons were sent to a railway branch that ran 250–300 meters from the main line to the burial pits. Many people died en route due to unbearable conditions – exhaustion, crush, and lack of air.

At specially prepared sites, the people brought were ordered to unload and strip naked – women, children, and men alike. Then they were thoroughly inspected, and any valuables found were taken. The naked people were driven to the pits, forced to descend the ladders, and lie face down in dense rows. A filled row was shot with machine guns, and the next victims were ordered to lie down on top – this repeated until the pit was completely filled.

After the shootings, the wagons were loaded with the clothing of the murdered people and sent back.

In June 1942, about 800 workers of the military warehouses were also shot – they were killed and buried near the barracks 400 meters from the station toward the Moscow-Warsaw highway.

All five trains were, by order of the station chief, German Heil, sent to the branch that ran 350–400 meters from the main road.

The sixth transport arrived from Bereza in September 1942 with 25 wagons.

The seventh train arrived from Brest in early October 1942 – 28 wagons. All people from these two trains were killed there in the same way as those from the first five trains.

Also, in September 1942, the Germans killed about 200 people from Bereza 200 meters south of the Moscow-Warsaw road toward the village of Smolyarka, and buried them there.

In total, 186 wagons with doomed people arrived at the Bronnaya Gora station during the occupation. By November 1942, more than 50,000 people, predominantly Jews, had been killed at Bronnaya Gora.

In 1943, two passenger cars filled with looted gold coins and items were sent from the station to Germany.

About 1,000 residents of the village of Bronnaya Gora, witnesses of the mass crimes who sometimes miraculously helped those who escaped from the shooting pits, were shot by the Nazis.

To conceal the traces of mass crimes, in March 1944, German occupation troops brought about a hundred prisoners here, who for two weeks dug up and burned the bodies of the killed. Shortly after, the perpetrators of this work were also shot and burned.

An eyewitness to the barbaric massacre, Bronnaya Gora station switchman Roman Novis of the State Extraordinary Commission for the Investigation of the Atrocities of the German-Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices immediately after the liberation of the district recounted: “When loading the wagons, everyone was forced to take off their outer and underwear. Women, children, and men stripped naked. The Germans carefully inspected their hands, and if they found rings on fingers, they took them away. People were driven to huge pits.

There were six of them. Ladders led to the bottom of each pit. People were driven down one by one and forced to lie face down on the ground. When a row was filled, the SS men shot with machine guns. Then they laid the second row, the third, and so on.

Near each wagon, the Gestapo left about ten people, ordering them to load clothes and underwear. When they finished loading, they were also shot.

Thus, all five trains were destroyed one after another. A few days later, several more trains with Soviet citizens arrived at Bronnaya Gora, and they were treated the same way.”

The Central Archive of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction of the USSR holds testimonies of other eyewitnesses.

Residents of Bronnaya Gora Ivan Govin, Grigory Yatskevich, Boleslav Shchetinsky, and others recount hearing gunshots, cries, and moans of people.

…From the memoirs of Roman Stanislavovich Novis, switchman of the Bronnaya Gora railway station during the German occupation (before the war he worked as deputy station chief):

“The wagons of the arriving trains at Bronnaya Gora station with Soviet citizens were closed. All five trains were sent to a branch that diverges from the main railway station Bronnaya Gora about 250–300 meters from the main road. Near the branch, where six large pits had been prepared in advance, each approximately 25 to 30 meters long, 10–12 meters wide, and 4 meters deep, citizens were unloaded from the wagons. Mothers carried infants to the pits in their arms.”

The second train, consisting of 46 wagons, arrived from the stations of Drogichin, Yanovo, and Gorodets. “In total, 186 wagons with Soviet citizens who were shot arrived at Bronnaya Gora. The arriving trains were sent back, with the clothes of the executed citizens inside the wagons,” Novis, who spoke German well, recounted. The station chief told him that over 48,000 Soviet citizens had been killed. The wagons were very overcrowded; along with living people, dead ones were already inside at the time of delivery. “I personally saw through the wagon windows the arrivals. During unloading, all citizens were forced to strip off their outer and underwear, i.e., everyone, men, women, and children, stripped naked. After this thorough inspection, they checked fingers, and if anyone had rings, they were removed. Then, naked, they were taken one by one to the pits and lowered down the ladder. In the pits, they were laid face down (in rows) side by side, and when a row was completely filled, they were shot with machine guns. Then the second, third rows were placed in the same way, until the pit was filled. I personally saw all the torture and shootings, heard the moans, cries of children, women, and men. I had the opportunity to see all this because the railway switches and the booth where I was were no more than 250 meters from the pits where the shootings took place.

At the same time, i.e., in June 1942, the Germans shot about 800 workers who worked at the military warehouses. All 800 were shot and buried in a pit on site near the warehouses and barracks. The barracks are about 400 meters from Bronnaya Gora station, toward the Moscow–Warsaw highway.”

From the interrogation protocol of Shchetinsky, switchman of the Bronnaya Gora railway station:

“Since I was connected with railway work, I often heard the moans and cries of children, women, and men locked in closed wagons. Once I stood near a train that arrived with people and heard the Germans guarding the train say that many had died in the wagons. After unloading the people from the wagons, the train returned, and I saw that the wagons contained clothes taken from the citizens delivered to the pits. … I don’t remember the exact date in September 1942, but I, together with the station duty officer Schmidt, was traveling by train along the railway branch near the pits where Soviet citizens were shot. We had to go a bit further to the warehouses where military uniforms were stored, but when we approached the pits, our train was stopped by the Germans and not allowed to proceed. They ran up to me and wanted to kill me, but Schmidt came up, negotiated with them, and I was released. Our train stopped opposite the pits, and I saw how the Germans carried citizens (bodies) and threw them into the pits.”

In 1944, feeling that the hour of reckoning was inevitable, the criminals began to cover up the traces of their atrocities. In March, the SS again cordoned off the site of the mass executions. People were brought here and ordered to dig up the graves, pile the bodies, and burn them. For 15 days and nights, a dark yellow cloud hung over Bronnaya Gora, and an unbearable stench prevailed. The Germans dismantled 48 military barracks that had become unnecessary and used the boards as firewood. Eyewitnesses claim that not only firewood but also a special liquid was used to burn the bodies.

Huge piles of ash were buried in the ground, and the raised burial mounds were leveled. On the surface of the graves and the sites where the bodies were burned, the Germans planted young trees. The people who burned the bodies were shot as witnesses to the atrocities. But such a monstrous crime cannot be hidden.

After the liberation of the Berezovsky district in autumn 1944, an Extraordinary State Commission was created to investigate the atrocities and assess the damage caused by the German-fascist invaders. Having examined the mass burial sites near the Bronnaya Gora railway station and collected witness testimonies, the commission established the fact of mass extermination of peaceful citizens at this site. From June to November 1942, more than 50,000 people were shot there.

Specific perpetrators of the tragedy were named. These included the head of the Brest regional police bureau Major Rode (from early 1944 Captain Biner), head of the 1st police precinct of Brest Lieutenant Hoffman, deputies of the Brest police chief Golter, Griber, and Bos, head of the 2nd police precinct of Brest Lieutenant Preizniger, head of the criminal police SD Obersturmführer Zavadsky, deputy head of the SD Obersturmführer Tsibel, SD officer Gerik who led the shootings, head of the gendarmerie in Bereza Oberleutnant Gerdes, and SD officers Griber and Wantzman.

The Extraordinary Commission working in the Berezovsky district included: chairman of the district executive committee Vasily Nikitich Bury, head of the district NKVD department Stepan Ilyich Morozov, head of the district NKGB department Vasily Alexandrovich Drozhzhin. The commission was headed by the district party committee secretary Semen Adamovich Yarotsky, who during the Great Patriotic War commanded the 345th partisan detachment fighting in Western Belarus. Similar commissions were created in village councils, including chairmen of village executive committees and other competent local residents. Commission members interviewed direct witnesses, interrogated former policemen, examined burial sites, conducted medical examinations, and carried out excavations at burial sites.

Sixteen acts with statistical data on civilian victims during the occupation of the Berezovsky district by German-fascist invaders were compiled: a consolidated report for the district, for the city of Bereza, separately for each village council, as well as nominal lists of peaceful citizens shot and deported to Germany. The commission identified by name the leaders of atrocities in the occupied district, among whom the police commandant Nikolai Olshevsky stood out. The consolidated act on the atrocities of the fascists and their accomplices states that during the occupation period, 5,899 district residents were shot, hanged, burned, and tortured to death, and 1,358 people were forcibly deported to Germany. From April 1942, mass shootings began of Belarusians, Poles loyal to the USSR, Jews, as well as “Easterners,” wives of Red Army officers who failed to evacuate. Two ghetto camps “A” and “B” were established in Bereza. Ghetto “A” housed Jewish specialists and essentially healthy people, while “B” held the elderly, women, and children. Initially, Jews from ghetto “B” were deported and exterminated at Bronnaya Gora, then those from “A.”

From the interrogation protocol of senior policeman Shidlovsky, information about the shooting of Jews in Bereza became known:

“When we, the policemen, gathered, we were assigned to guard Jewish houses. The guard was arranged so that one policeman stood next to a German. We were placed 3–5 meters apart behind the Jewish houses. There were 250–300 policemen. We were ordered not to let anyone out or in. We cordoned off the Jewish houses with guards in the evening. At sunrise, trucks were brought in, and the Germans began to drive Jews out of the houses and load them. They were taken to the Bereza-Kartuzskaya railway station. There, everyone was loaded into freight wagons, each wagon packed full, and taken, as soon became known, to Bronnaya Gora.” He, along with other policemen and some Gestapo members, guarded the site of the shooting of Jews from the Bereza ghetto, located about 200 meters from the graves.

After the liberation of the Berezovsky district from the German-fascist invaders in autumn 1944, excavations were carried out at the burial sites. Only bone fragments, hairpins, Soviet currency notes, and children’s shoes were found at the graves.

On October 15, 1992, a stone with a memorial plaque was installed at the site of the Holocaust victims’ shootings, consecrated by religious confessions – Orthodox, Catholic, and Jewish.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronnaya_Gora

https://www.savehistory.by/karta/pamyatnik-zhertvam-massovykh-rasstrelov-bronnaya-gora/