During the investigation of the criminal case on the genocide of the population of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, Sergey Kiryanov, Assistant Prosecutor of Beshenkovichi District, interrogated a minor prisoner who was taken for forced labor during the war

During the investigation of the criminal case on the genocide of the population of Belarus during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, Sergey Kiryanov, Assistant Prosecutor of Beshenkovichi District, interrogated a minor prisoner who was taken for forced labor to Germany during the war.

Thus, during the interrogation, a native of the village of Zhiltsy, Surazh District, Vitebsk Region, recounted several horrific episodes of the war.

At the beginning of the war, the girl was only 13 years old, living in her parents' house with her sister and aunt. Her parents had died in 1937. The village of Zhiltsy itself was located in the forest; there were no Germans there permanently, although they sometimes visited. Then, one day in the summer of 1942, a large detachment of Germans (at least 50 people), all in military uniform, arrived early in the morning. These soldiers took two teachers (one of them named Terentyeva) and two collective farm chairmen (one of them named Zhiltsov) who lived in the village and placed them in an unfinished school building. They were taken for alleged connections with partisans. After torture, by noon of the same day, all prisoners were hanged near the school building, and the soldiers left them hanging there. The victims were later buried by their relatives.

But the suffering of the villagers did not end there. Around late August – early September 1943, German soldiers (a small detachment, no more than 10 people) arrived in the village on horseback, gathered all the villagers, and drove them to the village of Verecha, Gorodok District. Upon arrival in Verecha, there were no local residents; all the "huts" were empty. The residents of Zhiltsy were distributed among the houses, where they stayed for one to two weeks. Then all the residents were loaded into freight cars (the latter were packed with people) and sent by rail to the city of Baranovichi. They were then placed for a couple of days in a camp called "Lesnoy" (near Baranovichi), which was located in a pine forest and consisted of barracks, with several rows of barbed wire and watchtowers around the perimeter. After being loaded into freight cars again, they were sent for forced labor to Germany (a labor camp located near the city of Berlin). They were assigned to work at the "Petrix" factory, located near the "Scheneweide" station, where they worked until their liberation by Soviet troops in 1945.

Upon returning to their native village, they found that not a single house remained, and therefore they were forced to settle in the city of Vitebsk.

The village did not survive the war and was not rebuilt.

Assistant Prosecutor

Beshenkovichi District

2nd Class Lawyer S.A. Kiryanov