Type of place

Information about the crime

Between June and July 1942, the German military police murdered around 10 Jewish inhabitants of Nedeżów, including men, women, and children. The victims were buried in two graves: one in the village and one in the forest.

In 2025, we conducted a site inspection of the grave with the participation of the family of an eyewitness to the murder of Jewish families from Nedeżów.

Witness: They ordered the Jews… I don’t know how many families there were, two or so. They were told to dig a pit. And Mindzia, who used to play with me, ran here and saw them killing them. But she was too scared to come closer. She ran to us, and right away people started gathering. The women out here on the meadow, the men at our house. She ran up to them and said: ‘If someone would lead me there, I’d go. Let them kill me. What am I going to do here on my own?’ There was this boy, he grabbed her hand and said: ‘Come, I’ll take you there.’ He took her hand and went, and I followed them. They made her identify who was lying in the pit, and then they killed her. That was it. It was over. I was standing here, at the back, and we were watching, me and my aunt. […] There was Moszku. Moszku lived where our community center is, over there. That’s where Moszku lived. And there was Srulku, Mindzia, and Chajka. That was probably their mother, Chajka.

Zapomniane: So, there was the road, and they were told to dig under the road?

Witness: No, the road was here, it went this way. And they were told to dig a pit behind this road, here, to the side. And here they killed them. In that pit.

(Nedeżów, 2025)

The former village head of Nedeżów, born in 1938, also took part in the site inspection:

Zapomniane: We came here to search for the graves of Jewish families who were killed here.

Witness: We might be standing on it.

Zapomniane: Do you remember this place?

Witness: Yes. Somewhere around here, the ground collapsed. I remember that. It was awful. Poles helped. They were catching them.

Zapomniane: Were they catching the Jews?

Witness: Yes. They helped catch them. They brought them here and shot them. And later the ground sank, because it was fresh soil. I’ve been talking about this for a long time, that it should be respected. I know they were here, I showed them, but they didn’t react.

[…]

Zapomniane: Do you think the road is on top of that grave?

Witness: Yes.

Zapomniane: So a road was built on that grave?

Witness: There’s almost a meter of mud here, there used to be a huge depression. There was a ramp here, and they transported milk. A lot, a lot of milk was brought here.

Zapomniane: Was it in the brick one, or still the wooden one?

Witness: In the brick one. I don’t recall a wooden one being here.

Zapomniane: And do you know how many people there could have been?

Witness: There were many Jewish families.

Zapomniane: How many?

Witness: At least a dozen. It wasn’t just one or two families. A lot.

Zapomniane: And do you think that all Jewish families from Nedeżów were killed here?

Witness: They caught them, and I’ll be honest, even Poles helped catch them. One girl tried to escape, but people got her and brought her here, to this place. The ground sank slightly here because it was fresh. They were buried here.

Zapomniane: Do you remember any names?

Witness: No, no.

Zapomniane: Perhaps after the war, someone spoke about it or remebered them. Do you recall that?

Witness: No, I don’t recall that. I know about it from my grandfather’s stories. He used to borrow money from the Jews. Yes, they were kind, they had money and lent it to my grandfather and so on. So in that kind of harmony… My grandpa had a close friend. And then the massacre began in Bełżec. They were burning the bodies of Jews. The wind was blowing from the south-east…

[…]

Zapomniane: Who dug this grave?

Witness: The Jews.

Zapomniane: The victims?

Witness: The victims. They gave them shovels, and they dug their own grave. They caught the girl. Some Polish boys dragged her here, and the Germans… that German spoke Polish perfectly. To that girl…

Zapomniane: Maybe he wasn’t German?

Witness: He was in uniform and had a rifle. Maybe he was from a region where Germans lived in Poland. There was quite a large minority. They caught the girl and brought her here. And they were lying there, shot and so on. ‘Show me. Where’s your mother?’ She approached and said, ‘That’s my mother, and that’s my sister,’ and so on. And the German stood behind her and bang! She fell, and they covered them with earth. We could be standing on their bones here…

Man: And that girl, how old do you think she was? Young, older?

Witness: She was almost an adult. A teenager. They caught her, she didn’t know what was happening, she tried to escape. And Polish boys caught her and brought her here. That I know. […] The ground collapsed here, it was visible. Now silt accumulated here, because it’s hilly terrain and the soil washed down from the hills. There’s almost a meter of earth here now. There’s almost a meter of earth here now.

Pan: And these Jews were buried beside the road, right?

Witness: Yes, yes.

Zapomniane: And what time of year could it have been? Do you remember?

Witness: I don’t know exactly what year it was. They buried a lot of people here.

Zapomniane: And the season? Was it winter? Was it spring?

Witness: It was summer.

Zapomniane: Summer.

Witness: It was in the summer. In winter the ground freezes quite deep. It was summer.

(Nedeżów, September 17, 2025)

IDENTIFICATION OF THE GRAVE BASED ON NON INVASIVE RESEARCH

On 17 September 2025, a site inspection was carried out at the location precisely indicated by the witness as the burial site of 10 victims (GPS: N 50°27.972′ E 023°34.378′).

The mass grave is believed to be located under a dirt road, right next to a single-storey structure visible in photographs of the site (see location photographs 1–2). The search area was narrowed down thanks to a sufficient number of reference points – the building, the dirt road, the edge of the asphalt road, and a row of trees.

The area was examined using ground-penetrating radar (MALA X3M/500 MHz). A total of seven parallel profiles were recorded, designated NED10001–NED10007, each approximately 14.5 meters in length. The echograms indicate a disturbance in the soil layers between approximately 6.60 m and 9.60 m, extending to a depth of about 1.0 m below ground level.

This anomaly is clearly visible on the echograms NED10001–NED10004; on echograms NED10005–NED10007 the soil-layer disturbance gradually diminishes. The approximate dimensions of the anomaly are 3.0 m by 2.1 m, with a depth of about 1.0 m below ground level.

The location where the soil layer disturbance was recorded features a characteristic depression in the ruts of a dirt road, which may be a remnant of a collapsed burial site. This depression in the terrain was recorded using LiDAR (Appendix LiDAR 1-2), and its dimensions are approximately 3.16 m by 2.10 m.

Aerial photography query for this area wasn’t ordered.

Contact and cooperation

We are still looking for information on the identity of the victims and the location of Jewish graves in Nedeżów. 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.

Recording (audio file), Rajmunda R., interviewed by Joanna R. Nedeżów, 2025.

Recording of the Zapomniane Foundation (audio file), former village head of Nedeżów, born in 1938, interviewed by Agnieszka Nieradko, September 17, 2025.

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.