On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland and quickly overwhelmed it. Within days of the war's beginning, Brańsk suffered German bombardment. On September 17, 1939, the USSR attacked eastern Poland, and in partnership with Nazi Germany, partitioned Poland under the terms of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 23. Brańsk along with all areas of Poland east of the Bug River was then occupied by the Soviet Union. All Polish and Jewish businesses of substance were confiscated by the Communist State. The Soviets remained in control of Brańsk until June 1941 when the Germans invaded their erstwhile Soviet allies. The German Army occupied the town and ordered the Jewish community to build a ghetto surrounded by barbed wire, to which the Jewish population (some 65% of the town) was confined. On November 8, 1942, the Jews of Brańsk were ordered to report to the town center, forced to march to the nearby town of Bielsk, and then transported by train to Treblinka. Within weeks, the vast majority were murdered by gassing at the Treblinka extermination camp.