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The site of the mass extermination of Jews from the ghetto in the town of Byten

Belarus, Ivacevichsky District, village, Sovetskaya Street 90, Byten, Belarus

Place of mass extermination of the peaceful Jewish population from the ghetto in the town of Byten, near the village of Rudnya, Ivacevichi District, Brest Region
Belarus: In the Footsteps of the Holocaust
photo
Jermaine
Before the war, 739 Jews lived in the town of Byten. In the summer of 1941, the Byten ghetto was established for the Jews of the town and nearby settlements. "Actions" against the Jews in Byten occurred repeatedly, up until the complete destruction of the ghetto.
On July 25, 1942, the Nazis and collaborators destroyed the Byten ghetto. Jews were brought by trucks to the outskirts of the town to an old trench about 100 meters long, forced to undress and lie face down at the bottom. Then, the doomed were shot from above with submachine guns and machine guns, and the next victims were forced to lie on top of the dead. The pit was covered with a layer of earth about 0.5 meters thick, with barbed wire.
In total, between 2,000 and 3,000 Jews from the town and nearby villages were killed in Byten.
On November 18, 1944, the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission for Byten district conducted an exhumation of the execution site. On December 30, 1944, the same commission examined two mass burial sites near the village of Rudnya. One contained 900 bodies, including 350 men, 420 women, and 130 children; the other contained 80 bodies, including 45 men, 20 women, and 15 children. The expert commission's report did not specify the nationality of the victims, but witness testimonies established that Jews from Byten were killed at this site on July 25, 1942. The commission's conclusion noted that the bodies were completely naked, lying face down, mixed with children, women, and men, and bullet wounds were found in various parts of the bodies.
A monument to the victims of the Holocaust has been erected at the execution site in the forest near the village of Rudnya.

Sources:

photo
Jermaine

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