Dzyatlava massacre The Dzyatlava massacres ( " Zhetel massacres " in Yiddish , " Diatłowo massacres " , " Dziatława massacres " ; or " Zdzięcioł massacres " in Polish ) were two consecutive mass shooting actions committed three months apart during the Holocaust . The local German gendarmerie ( aided by a Lithuanian unit and the Belarusian Auxiliary Police battalion ) surrounded the village of Zdzięcioł ( nominally Polish until the end of World War II , between 1939 – 1945 ) and ordered Jews to leave their houses . The victims were then stretched out face down on the main square and at the break of dawn , transported by lorries out of town . About 1 , 000 – 1 , 200 Jews were murdered in the Kurpiesze forest on April 30 , 1942 . The second massacre took place on August 6 , 1942 during the liquidation of the Ghetto . Some 1 , 500 – 2 , 000 Jews , possibly up to 3 , 000 by different source ( perhaps a combined number ) , were murdered at the Jewish cemetery . The town of Zdzięcioł was located in Nowogródek Voivodeship of the Second Republic prior to the Nazi - Soviet invasion of Poland . The massacres . The 1st massacre . On February 22 , 1942 , the German authorities put up posters around town announcing that all Jews had to move into the new ghetto , which was set up around the synagogue and the Talmud Torah building . On April 29 , the Germans arrested the Judenrat and at dawn on April 30 , the ghetto inmates were woken by shots inside the ghetto . The Germans announced through the Judenrat that all the Jews were to go to the old cemetery which was situated within the ghetto boundaries . At the same time , the Germans and their local Belarusian and Lithuanian collaborators began to drive the Jews out of their houses , beating , kicking and shooting those who were reluctant to obey . A selection was then carried out : women , children and the old were sent to the left , the young skilled workers to the right . About 1 , 200 of those sent to the right were marched along the streets to the Kurpiasz Forest on the southern edge of town , where some pits had been prepared in advance . There the Germans shot them in groups of twenty . During the course of the shooting the German district commissar appeared and released those who had a certificate stating their profession , as well as their families . Thus about one hundred returned to the ghetto . The massacre was conducted by the Germans and local Belorussian police force . The 2nd massacre . The second massacre started on August 10 , 1942 , and lasted for three days , as many Jews hid in prepared bunkers . During the course of the clearance of the ghetto , some 2 , 000 to 3 , 000 Jews were shot into three mass graves in the Jewish cemetery on the southern outskirts of Zdzięcioł , roughly 1 , 000 people in each . Just over 200 Jewish craftsmen were transferred to the ghetto in Nowogródek . This was the end of the ghetto and the end of the Jewish community of Zdzięcioł . Several hundred Jews , including the Kaplan family , who had hidden , fled once the massacre was over , some forming a family camp in the Nakryszki forest , where they managed to survive until the liberation . Word spread among the Jews in the labor camps of Dworzec ( Dworets ) , Nowogródek and other towns , about the Zhetel partisan detachment formed by the Soviets . A number of Jews ( about 120 people ) joined them at the Lipichany forests after their successful escape from the German massacre of August 1942 . The Zhetler detachment commanded by Hirsch Kaplinski also in turn exacted revenge on local collaborators . One act of revenge took place in the village of Molery on September 10 , 1942 . After eliminating two collaborators , the Jewish partisans also informed the elder of the village and the local villagers about the precise reasons why they carried out this reprisal . It is estimated that about 370 Jewish partisans from Dzyatlava survived the war . Today , of the two Jewish cemeteries in the town , only one has some marked graves .