3 Killing site(s)
Marian Z., born in 1929: "The Germans exterminated the Jews from our village. They were taken to the ghetto, and from there to the camp where they were killed. Almost no one survived. The ghetto was in Zambrów. I remember going there with my father to bring food to the Jews. A friend of my father mentioned how cold they were, saying they didn’t even have quilts. My father promised to bring some. But when he went back with the quilts, the ghetto was already gone—they had liquidated it." (Testimony N°YIU623P, interviewed in Prosienica, on October 12, 2016)
"Under Soviet rule, near the forest close to the village of Guty [-Bujno], I, along with other residents, dug an anti-tank trench. It was 3 km long, 8 m wide at the top, 5 m wide at the bottom, and 2 m deep. After these areas were occupied by German forces, the sounds of machine gun fire and occasional single shots could be heard every morning and evening from the direction of the mentioned trench." [Deposition given by Stanisław Wawerko on 1969.07.15; IPN Bi 484/70 p. 13-14]
Guty-Bujno, located approximately 13 km (8 miles) from Ostrów Mazowiecka in the Mazovian Voivodeship, was a small village primarily inhabited by Poles, with three Jewish families also residing there. Among the Jewish residents was a blacksmith named Berek, who was well-known for performing various repairs for the villagers. Although small, the Jewish community in Guty-Bujno contributed meaningfully to the daily life and economy of the village.
Guty-Bujno was located near the border between the Soviet and German zones of occupation. Following the September 1939 invasion, the village was initially occupied by Soviet forces before coming under German control after June 22, 1941. Under the German occupation, a new administration was established, and a German Gendarmerie post was set up in the village. Local Jewish families were forcibly transferred from Guty-Bujno to the Zambrów ghetto, where they were later killed or deported to extermination camps.
During the German occupation, Guty-Bujno also became a site of numerous killings targeting Jews, Roma, Poles, and Soviet POWs. Between July 1941 and late 1943, executions were carried out in multiple locations, most notably in the nearby forest, where two Soviet-built anti-tank trenches were repurposed as mass graves. These trenches, located about one km from the village, measured approximately 1 km and 500 meters in length, with depths of 3 meters and widths of 5 meters. Some accounts suggest that the trenches were as long as 3 km and up to 8 meters wide.
Victims, including POWs, Poles, and numerous Jews, were transported by truck to these killing sites from various locations, such as Grady or the "Browar" (brewery) and "Czerwoniak" (red building) prisons in Ostrów Mazowiecka. Executions were carried out with machine guns and pistols, and grenades were occasionally thrown into the trenches. In some cases, dogs were released to attack the victims. Afterward, the trenches were covered by requisitioned Polish villagers.
Among the Polish victims were 140 hostages from the "Czerwoniak" prison in Ostrów Mazowiecka, who were executed on May 26, 1943, in retaliation for the successful assassination of the German Landrat from Ostrów Mazowiecka by the Home Army. Other victims included individuals accused of aiding Jews, such as Jadwiga Długoborska, who was brought from Ostrów Mazowiecka and executed in Guty-Bujno on June 29, 1944.
Postwar investigations revealed the scale of these atrocities. The larger trench was found to contain at least 1,300 victims, while the smaller trench held approximately 500. The remains included individuals in civilian clothing as well as Red Army uniforms, reflecting the wide range of those targeted.
In addition to these known graves, the Yahad team identified another mass grave containing the remains of Jews and Roma. These victims were presumably captured in the surrounding area and taken to the forest near Guty-Bujno, a killing site locally referred to as "Nowiny," where they were murdered.
For more information about the killing of Jews in Zambrów, please refer to the profile of Rząśnik Lubotyński.
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