Kostry-Podsędkowięta | Podlaskie Voivodeship

Kazimierz B., born in 1923: “I was born in a village that no longer exists today, Kostry Mlyn. There were seven Jewish families in our village. My family knew the Jews in the village well and we often bought from them”. ©Cristian Monterroso/Yahad –In Unum Kazimierz B., born in 1923: "It was here, at my neighbor’s house where I used to come and play, that I saw a German kill two Jewish women and two young girls right in front of me.” ©Cristian Monterroso/Yahad – In Unum Józef B., born in 1931: “I saw the shooting of a group of about 6–10 Jews near the river while I was grazing cows. A Jew I knew, Penko from Ciechanowiec was with the, and he decided to escape”. ©Cristian Monterroso/Yahad – In Unum Józef B., born in 1931: “As an ex-soldier, Benko ran zig-zag to escape a Polish informant for the Germans who chased and shot at him. Penko jumped into the river and swam away in his heavy sheepskin coat to safety”. ©Cristian Monterroso/Yahad – In Unum Józef B., born in 1931: „Eventually, the Pole stopped chasing him, saying someone else would kill him anyway. Penko escaped. The remaining Jews were buried across the river, but the place is impossible to locate now.” ©Cristian Monterroso/Yahad – In Unum Kazimierz B. leads the Yahad team to the site where, according to the archives, 10 Jews were killed in the autumn of 1943 by Klukowo gendarmes, though more victims may be buried there. ©Cristian Monterroso/Yahad – In Unum Kazimierz B., born in 1923: “I organized two metal crosses to be placed here, and thanks to this, I remember where the Jews were also buried, though I don’t know exactly how many." ©Cristian Monterroso/Yahad – In Unum The approximate burial site of several Jews murdered by the Germans during the occupation. The site is marked today by two First World War soldiers’ graves. ©Cristian Monterroso/Yahad – In Unum

Destruction of Jews in Kostry-Podsędkowięta

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Field
Memorials:
No
Period of occupation:
1941-1944
Total number of victims:
Over 10

Witness interview

Józef B., born in 1931: "I saw a group of about 6 to 10 Jews being shot while grazing cows by the river. Among them was a Jew I knew, Penko from Ciechanowiec. As an ex-soldier, he decided to run zig-zag to escape a Polish informant for the German gendarmerie, who chased and shot at him. Penko jumped into the river and swam away to safety in his heavy sheepskin coat. Eventually, the Pole stopped chasing him, saying someone else would kill him anyway. Penko escaped, but the rest of the Jews were buried across the river at a site that is impossible to locate today." (Witness N°YIU600P, interviewed in Kostry-Podsędkowięta, on June 22, 2016)

Polish Archives

Kostry-Podsędkowięta, Klukowo Gmina [District] – Autumn 1943: Gendarmerie officers from the post in Klukowo murdered approx. 10 people of Jewish nationality near the villages of Kostry-Podsędkowięta and Wyszonki-Włosty. [Source : Main Commission (GK), Dsn 1/29/71 /"W" – 732/]

Historical note

Kostry-Podsędkowięta is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Klukowo, within Wysokie Mazowieckie County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in northeastern Poland. It lies approximately 63 km (39 mi) southwest of the regional capital Białystok and 121 km (75 mi) northeast of Warsaw.

Jews in the village of Kostry-Podsędkowięta constituted a small religious and national minority during the interwar period. Official data from the 1921 National Census indicates that 13 people of the Mosaic faith lived in the village at the time (out of a total population of 297). The remainder of the population consisted mainly of Poles (Catholics) and 3 people of Orthodox faith. As the village was too small to maintain its own religious infrastructure, the local Jewish community came under the jurisdiction of a larger center. The nearest place of worship, which housed a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery (kirkut), was located a few kilometers away in Wyszonki Kościelne and Ciechanowiec, located approximately 10-12km from Kostry-Podsędkowięta.

Before the outbreak of the Second World War, Ciechanowiec was home to a vibrant Jewish community that made up over 50% of the town’s total population. This bustling local economy relied heavily on Jewish-owned businesses, which operated a vast majority of the town’s trade workshops, textile mills, and craft shops.

For more information about the pre-war Jewish live in Ciechanowiec, please follow the corresponding profile.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), the territory surrounding Klukowo was placed under the German administration of Bezirk Bialystok. The civilian population was subjected to police supervision, requisitions, and forced labor enforced primarily by the local gendarmerie post in nearby Klukowo. Up to late 1942, Jewish residents from small villages in this area were either driven into nearby transit ghettos, such as the Wysokie Mazowieckie or Ciechanowiec ghettos, or went into hiding in local forests and farms.

During the liquidation of the Ciechanowiec ghetto, which began on October 15, 1942, numerous Jews attempted to break out and find refuge in nearby forests and surrounding villages, including Kostry-Podsędkowięta and its surroundings. Local testimonies frequently record these escape attempts, as well as the manhunts conducted by German forces and their local collaborators in the surrounding countryside.

According to archival records, in the autumn of 1943, Gendarmerie officers from the Klukowo post captured and murdered a group of approximately 10 Jewish people who were hiding in the fields or woods near Kostry Podsędkowięta and the adjacent village of Wyszonki Włosty. The witnesses interviewed by Yahad - In Unum, including Kazimierz B., born in 1923, made it possible to identify the likely burial site of these victims. The site is located near a field, nestled between trees, and is marked with two metal crosses. These crosses were originally erected on Kazimierz’s initiative to commemorate two First World War soldiers, one Polish and one Russian, buried at the site. Today, they also serve as the sole landmark for pinpointing the adjacent grave of Jewish victims.

In addition, hideouts and other killing sites of Jewish victims were shown to the Yahad team during the investigation in the area. These included a hideout on the Szalowski family property where the Weiner family, Jews from Ciechanowiec, hid in underground dugouts, as well as separate killing sites where two women and two children were murdered on the Kurduple family property, a victim hiding under a river bridge, three Jews in a small field near a road, and six Jews along the riverbank. In total, local witnesses accounted for approximately 16 additional Jewish victims killed in these shootings. After each shooting, local residents were requisitioned to bury the victims near their killing sites, though the exact burial locations could not be precisely identified.

For more information about the fate of the Weiner family from Ciechanowiec, please follow the Koce-Basie profile.

Other links

Nearby villages

  • Koce-Basie
  • Ciechanowiec
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