3 Killing site(s)
Jozef S., born in 1933: "In 1942, the Jews of Puchacze were killed. The Germans were aware that five Jewish families lived in the village. They ordered the villagers to find and gather all the Jews, who were hiding in trenches in the Puchacze Forest. The Germans threatened to destroy the entire village if the residents refused to cooperate. As a result, the villagers were forced to search the forest for the Jewish families. Each household was also required to search its own land. Two of the families were hiding together in one location, while a third family was hiding elsewhere. My father was among approximately forty villagers who were forced to participate in the search. He told me about the shooting of one group of Jews found in the forest. After they were discovered, one of the villagers went to summon the Germans. Three gendarmes arrived and executed all of the Jews on the spot. Their bodies were then transported by cart to a pit that had been dug in the forest." [Testimony N°YIU972P, interviewed in Puchacze, on March 19, 2019]
"A few Jewish families had lived in the village of Puchacze for a long time. These Jews were primarily farmers, though some were also engaged in trade. During the German occupation, these families continued to reside in Puchacze. To avoid detection by the Germans, they constructed hiding places on their properties, where they remained until 1942.
In late autumn 1942, the Germans launched a targeted Aktion against these Jews. A group of gendarmes arrived in Dołha, occupied the presbytery, and remained there for about a week. […] The Germans marched in platoons, spaced a few meters apart, systematically searching the terrain and all buildings.
On the first day of the operation, they discovered two Jewish families hiding near the forest: the family of Moszek Zajdman—his wife Chaja, three adult daughters, and one adult son—and the family of Ajzyk Międzyrzycki—his wife and two children. Moszek Zajdman, his wife, and their son, as well as the entire Międzyrzycki family, were executed on the spot at their hiding places. Zajdman’s daughters attempted to flee, but the Germans chased and shot them. They were killed in the meadows, not far from the village of Sitno.
The next day, the Germans resumed the operation in Puchacze. That day, they discovered a hiding place under a barn, where the entire family of Szaja Waga—eight people in total—was concealed. All were forced out of the hiding place and shot on the spot. […]
A few weeks later, the Germans returned to Puchacze for a third Aktion. This time, the gendarmes came from Międzyrzec Podlaski, under the command of a gendarme named Szlejg (his rank is unknown). They were searching for the family of Chaim Zajdman and his brother. At the time, a Polish man named Wojciech Pachurka—who had been forcibly resettled from Warsaw County—was living on Chaim Zajdman’s property. When the gendarmes entered the house, they found only Pachurka; the Zajdman family had fled shortly before their arrival.
The gendarmes executed Pachurka on the spot, accusing him of aiding Jews. At the same time, they captured and killed Zajdman, a mute Jewish man, on a neighboring property. They then set fire to his house." [IPN – OKL, Ds 131/67, copied: vol. 2, pp. 247 – 24]
Puchacze is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Międzyrzec Podlaski, within Biała Podlaska County in eastern Poland. It is located approximately 9 km (6 miles) east of Międzyrzec Podlaski, 15 km (9 miles) west of Biała Podlaska, and 88 km (55 miles) north of Lublin, the regional capital.
In the 17th century, Puchacze was part of the Międzyrzec estate owned by Łukasz Opaliński. The village became an independent settlement in the 19th century and includes both a residential area and surrounding forest. It belongs to the Orthodox parish of the village of Dołha. In 1883, Puchacze consisted of 14 houses and had 80 residents.
Due to a lack of historical sources, it is difficult to determine exactly when Jews first settled in Puchacze. However, prior to the Second World War, five Jewish families were known to live in the village. According to a local witness, they worked as tradesmen and farmers. The families included Chaim Zajdman, Jankiel Zajdman, Ajzyk Międzyrzecki, Moszek Zajdman, and Szaja Waga.
There was no house of prayer in Puchacze; instead, Jewish residents prayed in their homes. The nearest synagogue was located in Międzyrzec Podlaski, 9 km to the west, which, on the eve of the war, was home to a thriving Jewish community of approximately 12,000 people.
After the outbreak of war in September 1939, Puchacze was first occupied by Wehrmacht forces, who soon withdrew, leaving the area to the Red Army by the end of the month. After a brief Soviet occupation, their troops retreated behind the Bug River, and in early October 1939, the territory was definitively taken over by the Germans. A gendarmerie post was subsequently established in nearby Międzyrzec Podlaski, where a ghetto was created and became a major transit point for thousands of Polish and foreign Jews en route to death camps.
The Jewish families from Puchacze chose not to report to the Międzyrzec Podlaski ghetto. Instead, they went into hiding, constructing dugouts in the local forest and around their homes and farm buildings. In the fall of 1942—during the liquidation of the Międzyrzec ghetto, which unfolded through a series of Aktions between October and December—the Jews hiding in Puchacze were specifically targeted. German gendarmes stationed for a week at the presbytery of the nearby village of Dołha conducted operations against them.
As a result of these manhunts, three Jewish families were found and executed at the end of December 1942. Another family was killed a few weeks later, in early 1943. The victims were buried in three separate locations in the forests and meadows around Puchacze.
The first group of ten victims included members of the Moszek Zajdman and Międzyrzecki families. According to a local witness, his father was among the villagers forced by the gendarmes to participate in the search. While Polish archival records describe German units conducting coordinated sweeps—marching in platoons and searching all terrain and buildings—witness testimony collected by Yahad - In Unum suggests that local villagers conducted much of the searching themselves, under German orders. Once the Jews were located, the Germans would arrive and carry out the executions at the hiding sites. The bodies were then transported by cart to a burial site in the Puchacze Forest.
A second Aktion, likely occurring two days later, resulted in the killing of eight members of the Waga family, who were shot and buried near their hiding place. A few weeks after that, in early 1943, gendarmes from Międzyrzec returned and executed the final five members of the Puchacze Jewish community.
Today, memorials—erected with the support of the Lasting Memory Foundation—mark the three locations where the victims were buried, preserving the memory of the Jewish families who once lived in Puchacze.
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