Biała Niżna (Biala Nizna) | Lesser Poland

/ Stanislaw R., born in 1926, a witness of the shooting of 360 Jews from Grybow © Victoria Bahr - Yahad-In Unum Stanislaw R., born in 1926, a witness of the shooting of 360 Jews from Grybow © Victoria Bahr - Yahad-In Unum Marian G., born in 1933, recalls: “The road was here. The trucks with Jews stopped right here (…)” © Victoria Bahr - Yahad-In Unum The research team observes the witness drawing a diagram of the execution site during the interview © Victoria Bahr - Yahad-In Unum Marian G., born in 1933, recalls: “here was a plank across the pit (…). The Jews had to stand on it and they were shot.” © Victoria Bahr - Yahad-In Unum Marian G. leads the research team to the execution site in the Biala Nizna forest © Victoria Bahr Yahad-In Unum Marian G. shows the team the execution site in the Biala Nizna forest © Victoria Bahr - Yahad-In Unum

Execution of Jews in Biała Niżna

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Forest
Memorials:
Yes
Period of occupation:
1939-1944

Witness interview

Stanislaw R., born in 1926, recalls: “There were three or four trucks because 360 Jews, it’s a lot of people. There were elderly Jews and children. […]. Instead of shooting children, they hit them with a baton in the head and pushed them directly into the pit. Two Jews were arranging the corpses in the pit. At the very end, they were killed as well and it was all over.” (Eyewitness N°202 , interviewed in Biala Nizna, on September 04, 2013)

Polish Archives

Court inquiries about executions and mass graves:

1. Date and place of execution: August 1943.
2. Type of execution (shooting, hanging or other): shooting;     
3. Personal data of the executed victims
Polish, Jews, other nationalities: Jews;
Number of executed victims: around 300 persons / lack of precise data
Origin of the victims: Grybow. (Deposition of Jozef K., a Vojt of Grybow district; RG-15.019M)

Historical note

Biała Niżna is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Grybów, within Nowy Sącz County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately 3 kilometres east of Grybów. There were only Poles living in Biala Nizna before the World War II. Jews lived in several villages and towns nearby, such as Grybow, Stroze or Bobowa. The last one was even referred to as a “Jewish town” because the majority of the population was Jewish. Grybow lies about 3km from Biala Nizna. During the interwar period, in 1939, 847 Jews lived in Grybów. The Jews in Grybow were mainly traders and artisans (butchers, shoemakers, bakers, tailors, etc.) but there were also some entrepreneurs, like owners of a local sawmill, watermill and vodka factory, for example.  The Jews lived in the center of the town, on the streets around the market place.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

The nearest ghetto lay about 3 km from Biala Nizna, in Grybow. It was created in 1940. The Nazis gathered about 2.5 thousand Jews there from Krużlowa Niżna, Krużlowa Wyżna, Stara Wies, Siołkow, Mszalnica, Kąclowa, Biała Wyżna, Ptaszkow but also from Lodz and its surroundings. In August 1942, the ghetto was liquidated.  Some of the ghetto inmates were transported to the ghetto in Nowy Sacz and the rest of them, approximately 360 men, women and children, were executed in Biala Nizna. That’s how this small village in southern Poland became one of the largest sites of martyrdom. According to Stanislaw R., the witness of the shooting, among 360 Jews killed in Biala Nizna, 60 were children.

 

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