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1 Killing site(s)
Leoncjusz D., born in 1931: "I was out grazing my cows when two fully covered trucks arrived at the airfield [near the Piliki Forest] that had been built under Soviet rule. Six gendarmes got out of the vehicles with the passengers, who were all men. The Germans forced them to dig a large, rectangular pit. It wasn’t very deep, only about 80 to 100 centimeters. Once the pit had been dug, the men were forced to step inside, fully clothed. The Germans then shot them in the back using submachine guns. All the men brought in the first truck were shot together in this way. After the shooting, the Germans ordered me to leave the area, so I did not see what happened to the men in the second truck. I later learned that four residents of Grabowiec were among those killed. When I returned to the site the following day, the grave had already been covered. The bodies were later exhumed and reburied in the cemetery in Bielsk." (Witness N°YIU336P, interviewed in Piliki, on May 15, 2014)
Location: Village of Piliki, Bielsk Podlaski County (powiat), Białystok Voivodeship (voïévodie).
Document Type: Questionnaire on mass executions and mass graves.
Questionnaire Details
1. Date and Place of Execution: July 1941, forest clearing/holy place (uroczysko) "Osuszek" in the Piliki Forest.
2. Type of Execution (Shooting, Hanging, or Other): Shooting.
3. Information Regarding the Executed Victims:
o Nationality/Ethnicity (Poles, Jews, Foreigners): Jews.
o Number of Executed People: 30.
o Origin of Victims: Bielsk Podlaski.
o Name, Age, Profession, and Address: Unknown.
4. Is it Known What the Victims Were Accused of, or Was the Execution Retaliatory / Other Order? No.
5. Perpetrators (Gendarmerie, Gestapo, SS, Police, Wehrmacht): Gestapo.
6. Are the Names of the Perpetrators Known? (Provide Names): Unknown.
7. Were the Bodies Burned or Otherwise Destroyed? At What Location? The bodies were buried at the site of execution.
8. Where Were the Bodies Buried? (Exact Location): Two mass graves in the Piliki Forest, 250 meters from the Bielsk–Dubiażyn road.
9. Description of the Pit(s) (Dimensions, Estimated Victims per Pit):
o 1st pit: 6m x 1m
o 2nd pit: 4m x 1m
10. Has an Exhumation Been Carried Out? Was an On-Site Protocol Created? No.
11. Are There Reasons to Request a Future Exhumation? No.
[Source: Deposition of Włodzimierz Kułakowski (age 49, resident of Bielsk Podlaski, occupation unknown), dated October 1, 1945. Testimony based on his own observations and those of local residents. USHMM RG-15.019M, Reel 1 (pp. 374–375 in the PDF)]
Piliki is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Bielsk Podlaski, within Bielsk County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in northeastern Poland. According to local residents interviewed by Yahad - In Unum, only Orthodox Christians and Catholics lived in the village on the eve of the Second World War. However, a thriving Jewish community of 3,280 residents lived in the nearby town of Bielsk Podlaski in 1939.
During the Second World War, the Piliki Forest, located along the southern edge of Bielsk Podlaski near Grabniak Street and the former airfield, became the killing site for hundreds of victims, including Jews, Poles, and Soviet POWs.
Following the German occupation of Bielsk Podlaski on June 24 and 25, 1941, mass shootings in the Piliki Forest began almost immediately and continued throughout the war. Archival sources document at least three major shootings conducted by Gestapo forces involving Jewish victims in a clearing known as “Osuszek” within the forest. The earliest recorded operation occurred in early July 1941, when approximately 30 Jewish intellectuals and business leaders from Bielsk Podlaski were shot and buried on site in two separate pits, located roughly 250 meters from the Bielsk to Dubiażyn road. This operation was carried out by an SD unit, likely an Einsatzkommando led by Hauptsturmführer Wolfgang Birkner or Adolf Bonifer.
In June 1942, a mass shooting of 180 individuals, including Jewish victims alongside Poles, Roma, and POWs from Bielsk, was carried out at the same location. The victims were all interred in a single pit. A third documented shooting took place in August 1942, claiming the lives of 50 Jewish and Polish inhabitants of Bielsk.
Eyewitness testimonies provide a vivid account of these shootings. Leoncjusz D., born in 1931, was grazing cattle near the local Soviet airfield when he saw six gendarmes arrive in two covered trucks carrying male prisoners. The captives were forced to dig a shallow pit, ordered into it fully clothed, and shot in the back with submachine guns. Ordered to leave before the second truckload was executed, Leoncjusz D. returned the next day to find that the pit had already been filled in. Another witness, Mikołaj P., born in 1921, recalled seeing numerous vehicles carrying adults and children moving toward the same site in the Piliki Forest following the liquidation of the Bielsk Podlaski ghetto, followed shortly by screams and gunfire.
Historian Henryk Kosieradzki estimates that between 800 and 1,000 people were murdered in the forest between 1941 and 1944. July 15 was designated as a day of commemoration to mark the July 15, 1943 massacre of 49 residents, mainly local intellectuals and children. In July 1945, exhumations revealed six mass graves containing 643 bodies, though other pits remained unexhumed. The exhumed victims were reburied at the cemetery in Bielsk Podlaski, and a monument in the Piliki Forest now honors all who were killed at the site.
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