Type of place

Information about the crime

In June 2025, we conducted a site inspection of the plot at 27 Mazowiecka Street in Czyżew, where according to the Memorial Book of the Jews of Czyżew, a Jewish grave dating back to the time of the Holocaust is believed to be located. Until recently, a pre-war wooden house stood on the plot. The property belonged to the Szczupakiewicz family. According to the Memorial Book, the bodies of members of the Szczupakiewicz or Spaleniec families were buried in the grave on Mazowiecka Street. Memories of the Szczupakiewicz family can be found in the Memorial Book of Czyżew, published in 1961 in Tel Aviv. Dov Saba’s testimony indicates that the bodies of Chaim Szczupakiewicz and his family are buried on Mazowiecka Street. Chaim and Motl Szczupakiewicz’s sister Perla (Pola), married name Spaleniec, and her daughter Sarele survived the war. Perla’s husband and their two other children were murdered during the Holocaust.

“I walked through that web of shadows as a shadow myself, clothed in nightmares already lived through. I stopped by the Szczupakiewicz house. That house was bound to so many memories from my youth. It was home to the Jewish library, the only center of culture and learning in the town. […] Motel Szczupakiewicz also lived in this house, together with his brother Chaim and his brother-in-law Izroelke, along with their families. Motel and I had been close friends since childhood. […] Motel Szczupakiewicz emigrated to America before the war. Here in Czyżew, his sister [Perla Pola, married name Spaleniec] survived together with her daughter Sarele and now they live in their own apartment, in a room that formerly served as a laundry. The other rooms are occupied by Russian soldiers.

I stopped at the threshold. We looked at each other and immediately recognized one another, even though we both bore little resemblance to who we once were. I had been changed by my military uniform. She was pale and emaciated. A shadow of her former self. The child’s face still showed fear at every rustle that could signal death. Perla led me to the yard, stopped, and spoke in a raised voice:

– You see, my brother Chaim is buried here. During the action, he tried to escape… He wanted to live.

She lowered her head and began to sob. (Dow Saba [real name Berl Gorzalczany] Na ruinach Czyżewa in: Sefer Zikaron Czyzewo, Tel Aviv, 1961, translated by Aleksandra Król)

However, according to the account of Julian Dawidowicz, a post-war journalist for Polish Radio who helped collect materials for the Memorial Book and made several trips to Czyżew, also included in the Memorial Book, it appears that the grave of Perla’s husband and their children is located there. Moreover, Kazimierz Barczyk, a friend of the Szczupakiewicz family, appears in the story. After the war, he was supposed to exhume the bodies of the victims and bury them on Mazowiecka Street.

“[…] A Polish man named Barczyk was a left-wing socialist before the war from the group led by Dubois. He developed a sense of justice and brotherhood that outweighed the anti-Semitic prejudices prevalent in the Polish community. I had Jewish friends – he said to me – whom I will never forget for their honesty and warm, humane attitude.

Barczyk was especially close to the Szczupakiewicz family. When he spoke about them, about the two brothers, his face showed sincere admiration but also sadness over all the great misfortune. Let us allow him to speak in his own words:

They were capable people, full of initiative and energy. They owned a mill, a timber yard, and a construction company. The town could have benefited from such talented people. And now everything lies in ruins. […]

He remembered that one of the Szczupakiewicz family, Motel, had survived because he had left for America before the war. I still remember him as if it were not long ago, over 20 years ago. He was handsome, friendly, and elegant. He was even popular among Polish girls from aristocratic circles. He was lucky. His brother died with his entire family. Only his sister and her daughter survived. They hid with peasants in Gedase [Gudosze?]. They lived in the same village before the war. When the “action” began, they did not show up.  The military police arrived and shot her husband, son, and daughter on the spot; they were buried in their own yard. Only she and her other daughter escaped to the neighbors, and they managed to survive.

After the Russians entered, Barczyk helped move their grave, on which he planted flowers. From time to time, he goes there and waters the roses, which grow, tended by noble hands.” (Julian Dawidowicz, Na tropach żydowskiego życia, in: Sefer Zikaron Czyzewo, Tel Aviv, 1961, translated by Aleksandra Król)

A few sentences later in Dawidowicz’s account, the following sentence appears: “This is also the reason why no one in Czyżew knows who waters the roses on the Spaleniec grave in the Szczupakiewicz yard.”

The alphabetical catalog of German crimes committed in the borough of Czyżew records the following incidents in Czyżew:

• Shortly after the occupation of Czyżew in August or September 1941, the Germans established a ghetto, where about 1,200 people were placed. It was located along Polna, Niecała, and Przytorowa streets. The ghetto was surrounded by barbed wire fences, and Jews were not allowed to leave it. Due to the lack of adequate living conditions, the ghetto was overcrowded, dirty, and plagued by hunger. Jews were forced to perform various types of work at the Czyżew railway station. In the summer of 1942 (exact date unknown), an unnamed 7-year-old girl managed to get out of the ghetto past the barbed wire fence, likely searching for food, and walked along a ditch toward the railway station. German soldiers spotted her and fired several shots, killing her on the spot. The following people were murdered in the ghetto: Erszko Krzywonoga, 28, a cab driver, and his wife, Taktynka’s son, 26 [the Memorial Book lists three people with the surname Tyktin among Holocaust victims, including Izrael and Sura Misza]; Fajwula, 22; and an unidentified 5-year-old child.
• In the summer of 1942, in the morning hours, a military policeman led the Kozak couple out of the ghetto to the Jewish cemetery in Czyżew. There, he ordered them to stop, then to walk forward. He stood behind them and fired his pistol, first at Kozak, then at his wife, killing them instantly. Kozak was 30 years old and worked as a barber; his wife was 25. The bodies of the murdered were buried by the local population. Many Jews were murdered while being transported from Zambrów to the station in Czyżew.
• During the liquidation of the ghetto in the autumn of 1942, military policemen murdered Basia Cioch, aged 70 (beaten to death with a club) and an unidentified disabled man. […] Basia Cioch was disabled and unable to walk properly.
• Czyżew, 1941: Jankiel Bolender lived in the manor buildings (now POM) in Czyżew. The Germans dragged him out of his house and shot him in the back of the head in front of the house.
• On July 31, 1941, Jankiel Lejba Orliński and Estera Rachela Szajko (Orlińska) were murdered.
• 1942, Czyżew forest: S (illegible) Kirszenbaum, Ralph Litman, and Pesze Litman were murdered.
• On November 15, 1942, Zysl Bolender and Szymon Zygelbaum were murdered.
• In 1941, Rubin Ryba, son of Srul, was murdered.
• On November 22, 1942, Szmul Nusel Jakubowicz was murdered. [In the Memorial Book, the list of Holocaust victims includes Szmuel Natan Jakubowicz: “His wife ran a business. He worked as a clerk in a timber warehouse owned by Stuczyński.”]
• In the summer of 1943, an unidentified military policeman led a young Jewish woman named Wysocka or Wysokińska, who was about 20 years old at the time, out of prison. The policeman led the girl ahead of him, and when they reached the Jewish cemetery, he shot her in the back of the head. He ordered the local population to bury the body. She was dressed in a black apron.
• In the summer of 1943, agricultural commissioner Willy Sadowski shot and killed an unidentified Jewish woman who, together with her child, had jumped from a train bound for Treblinka.
• In the fall of 1943, German military policemen brought a 40-year-old Jewish woman named Szwarcowa to the Jewish cemetery. Before entering the cemetery, Szwarcowa said something to the military police, probably asking them to spare her life. In response, a military policeman ordered her to enter the cemetery and shot her in the head with a pistol, killing her instantly. Her body was buried by people assigned to do so.
• On March 18, 1943, Jankiel Kitaj was shot.
• On March 22, 1943, Rachela Lea Bolender [wife of Motl Bolender] was murdered.
• In 1943, two Jewish women aged around 20, who had been hiding on the Ruś estate, were murdered in the Jewish cemetery.
• On August 20, 1943, German military policemen took three men, a woman, and a 2-year-old child out of prison and shot them in the Jewish cemetery. They were Jews.

Contact and cooperation

We are still looking for information on the identity of the victims and the location of Jewish graves in Czyżew. If you know something more, write to us at the following address: kontakt@zapomniane.org.

Bibliography

IPN GK 163/18 Survey. Executions. Graves. Lubelskie voivodeship; volume VII; Questionnaires on executions and mass graves – lubelskie voivodeship

Sefer Zikaron Czyzewo, Tel Aviv, 1961, translated by Aleksandra Król

The materials published on this website were developed, digitized, and made available thanks to funding from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage through the Culture Promotion Fund, as well as support from the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Warsaw, which also enabled the creation of the English-language version of the website.