# Malaya Berestavitsa massacre

The Malaya Berestavitsa massacre (Polish: Zbrodnia w Brzostowicy Małej , Belarusian: Злачынства ў Малой Бераставіцы) happened in middle of September 1939 in the village of Malaya Byerastavitsa, during the Soviet Invasion of Poland. During that event, between 8 and 50 Polish villagers were murdered by pro-communist militia mainly made up of Jewish Belarusians.

## Historiography

The massacre in Malaya Berestavitsa was first described by Krzysztof Jasiewicz in the study Lista strat ziemiaństwa polskiego 1939–1956 (List of losses of Polish landowners 1939-1956) published in 1995. Later it was discussed by Ryszard Szawłowski [pl] in his book Wojna polsko-sowiecka 1939 (Polish-Soviet War 1939) (1997) and Marek Wierzbicki in his book Polacy i Białorusini w zaborze sowieckim. Stosunki polsko-białoruskie na ziemiach północno-wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej pod okupacją sowiecką 1939–1941 (Poles and Belarusians in the Soviet Annexation. Polish-Byelorussian Relations in the North-Eastern Lands of the Second Polish Republic under Soviet Occupation 1939-1941) published in 2000.

## The massacre

The exact date of the massacre is unknown. Jasiewicz states that it took place on the night of 17–18 September, i.e. only a dozen hours after the USSR's aggression against Poland. Other sources indicate that it was committed after the Red Army had already occupied the territory of the Indura County [pl], i.e. between 19 and 20 of September. The perpetrators were allegedly members of a pro-communist militia made up of Jews and Belarusians, most of them former political and criminal prisoners. It was to be headed by Ajzik Zusko, a Jewish trader living on the Wołkowicki family's landed estate, and a Belarusian criminal, Sergei Koziejko.
According to the account quoted by Wierzbicki in his book, the militia first attacked the Wołkowicki family mansion and the Polish offices in Malaya Berestavitsa. A number of Poles were detained and sent to the local prison. To celebrate their "success", the attackers drank alcohol. In the morning the drunken militiamen dragged the Poles out of the prison, with the paralysed Countess Wolkowicka being dragged out by her hair. After being tortured, the victims were murdered. Some were shot. Others - including the Countess in particular, who loudly threatened the torturers with trial and punishment - were forced to swallow lime. Many of the wounded victims were buried alive in a mass grave. The course of the murder was so cruel that one of the Belarussians standing guard allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown. A Canadian columnist using the pseudonym Mark Paul describes the course of the massacre in a different way. In his description, it becomes a pogrom in which not only the landowners and state employees fell victim, but the entire Polish population of Brzostowica Mała. He indicates 20 September as the date. He also adds that the crime was inspired by Żak Motyl, a communist of Jewish origin, who in September 1939 headed a "revolutionary committee" in neighbouring Vyalikaya Byerastavitsa (Brzostowica Wielka)
The greatest discrepancies occur with regard to the number of victims. Wierzbicki states that a total of eight people were murdered: landowners Ludwika and Antoni Wołkowicki, Ludwika's brother Zygmunt Wojnicz-Sianożęcki, as well as local representatives of the Polish state apparatus: the head of the village, the village secretary, the cashier, the postman and the teacher. The same number was given by the Institute of National Remembrance, adding that the surname of the murdered landowners was Wołkowycki, and the murdered village head was Kazimierz Wieliczko. On the other hand, according to Paul, the number of murdered reached fifty.

## Epilogue

Dozens, if not hundreds, of such incidents took place around that time in Eastern Poland as the Soviet army advanced westward; the largest related incident was the Skidel revolt of 18–19 September 1939.
After the consolidation of Soviet power in the occupied Eastern Borderlands, several of the perpetrators of the crimes were accepted into the ranks of the militia. Ajzik Zusko, on the other hand, was appointed chairman of the local cooperative by the Soviet authorities. He was killed by the Germans in June 1941, shortly after the outbreak of the German-Soviet war.
A series of articles on the massacre in Malaya Berestavitsa appeared in the Polish Catholic-national newspaper Nasz Dziennik in September 2001, a few months after the debate on the Jedwabne pogrom began. The right-wing-affiliated columnist Mark Paul tried to equate the two crimes, pointing to the neighbourhood character of the murder in Malaya Berestavitsa and using the term "the first Jedwabne in occupied Poland" in relation to it.

## IPN investigation

Influenced by publications that appeared in 2001 in the pages of Nasz Dziennik, the investigation into the crime in Malaya Berestavitsa was initiated by the Institute of National Remembrance. It was discontinued in 2005 due to the exhaustion of evidentiary possibilities. In an interview with Nasz Dziennik, prosecutor Dariusz Olszewski of the IPN branch in Białystok stated:
   The circumstances made it plausible that the crime was committed with the aim of destroying a group of people of Polish nationality, belonging to the circle of representatives of the intelligentsia and the state authorities. Thus, the act was qualified as an act of genocide, committed by persons acting in the interests of the communist state and inspired by its authorities.
In the course of several years of investigation, the IPN found sixteen people who were residents of the village at the time. However, upon questioning them, it was established that none of them had participated in the events under investigation, and that these witnesses based their knowledge only on third party accounts.