1941 Białystok massacres refers to the series of pogroms and mass executions committed by the Ordnungspolizei and SS against the Jewish population of Białystok in occupied Poland. These atrocities were committed at the turn of June and July 1941, following the German invasion of the USSR.
On June 27, 1941, Białystok fell to German troops. Accompanied by Wehrmacht soldiers, members of the Police Battalion 309 entered the city. Initially tasked with searching the Jewish districts to apprehend Red Army remnants and "hostile elements," this operation took a brutal turn due to the radically anti-Semitic attitude of certain officers and non-commissioned officers. What began as a city search evolved into a massacre. On that day, approximately 2,000 to 3,000 of Białystok's Jews were murdered by the German policemen, with around 700–800 burned alive in the Great Synagogue.
Following this, on July 3, Einsatzgruppe B rounded up nearly a thousand Jews in Białystok. About 300 prisoners, primarily intellectuals, were executed the following day in the Pietrasze forest. Further executions, directly ordered by Heinrich Himmler, occurred on July 12 and 13. During these days, members of the police battalions 316 and 322 shot approximately 4,000 Jews in the Pietrasze forest.
Estimates suggest that at the turn of June and July 1941, the Nazis murdered between 6,500 and 7,000 Jews in Białystok. On August 1, 1941, the remaining Jews were confined to the newly established Białystok Ghetto.
Jews of Białystok in the years of 1939–1941
In the 1936 census, Białystok was home to 44,482 Jews, accounting for nearly 45% of the city's population.
In the second half of September 1939, after the invasion of Poland, the city fell under temporary German occupation. When Wehrmacht troops entered the city on September 15, 11 men, including 6 Jews, were shot by soldiers from the "Lötzen" Infantry Brigade. Two additional Jews fell victim to the Nazis in subsequent days, while many others were imprisoned in a transit camp established within the premises of Primary School No. 1 on Ogrodowa Street. On September 20, members of Einsatzgruppe IV inspected the camp and, citing 'disobedience,' executed 8 prisoners, including two Jews.
After a week, the Germans retreated, relinquishing control of the city to the Soviets. Over the two-year Soviet occupation, the Jewish population in Białystok swelled to approximately 50,000, mainly due to the influx of refugees from the German-occupied zones.
The outbreak of German-Soviet war
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany initiated an invasion of the Soviet Union. Białystok lay in the primary path of Army Group Centre's offensive. Its armies were followed by Einsatzgruppe B, a special operational group of the SD and Sicherheitspolizei, which was ultimately to operate in the areas Belarus and central Russia.
Furthermore, four Order Police battalions were sent to the Army Group Centre Rear Area. Three of them: 307, 316 and 322 formed the Police Regiment Centre (Polizei-Regiment Mitte), whose commander was Col. Max Montua. On the other hand, the 309 battalion, formed in September 1940 in Cologne, was assigned to the 221st Security Division (221. Sicherungs-Division). The general authority over SS and Ordnungspolizei forces in occupied Belarus, including Białystok area and north-eastern part of Polish Kresy, was exercised by the Higher SS and Police Leader "Russia-Centre", SS-Gruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski (Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer "Rußland-Mitte").
It is difficult to ascertain the exact orders received by members of the Einsatzgruppen prior to the invasion of the USSR. Some evidence suggests they were instructed primarily to execute Communist Party functionaries, "Jews in Party and state positions," and "other radical elements" Nevertheless, many SS and Ordnungspolizei officers, tasked to operate in the East, inclined toward a more extreme approach from the onset. For example, in the initial days of the German-Soviet war, the Einsatzgruppen executed Jewish men en masse, often without differentiating whether they were Communist Party members or state employees. Such actions of local commanders were sanctioning ex post facto by Heinrich Himmler and SS leading officers.
Also, Maj. Ernst Weiss, commander of the Police Battalion 309, providing his officers with the Commissar Order and the Barbarossa decree, supplemented them with his own interpretation, asserting that, in his view, the Führer's orders necessitated the liquidation of all Jews, irrespective of age or gender. Shortly after, the unit under his command perpetrated a large-scale massacre of Jews in Białystok.
The "Black Friday" of June 27, 1941
Background
After the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, chaos quickly engulfed Białystok. Soviet occupation apparatus members and their families fled in panic. Fear of Luftwaffe air raids and Soviet repression triggered an exodus of many residents from the city. Instances of shop and warehouse looting occurred. Approximately 2,150 political and criminal prisoners escaped from the local prison, as NKVD guards fled. Up to 200 inhabitants of Białystok and the surrounding area were killed by the retreating Soviets. Additionally, some accounts reported incidents of Poles attacking Jews in Białystok.
On June 27, around 6:00 a.m., units of the German 221st Security Division entered Białystok. Wehrmacht soldiers were accompanied by members of Police Battalion 309. The battalion's 1st and 3rd companies approached from the west and southwest in the morning, while the 2nd Company joined from the southeast later in the day. All three units positioned themselves in the Kościuszko Square area.
The Germans encountered minimal resistance from remaining Red Army troops and "partisans." Official reports claimed that during several hours of skirmishes, three German officers and 43 non-commissioned officers and soldiers were killed. The 221st Division's war diary on June 27 recorded that during the combing of the city and the accompanying skirmishes, "many houses caught fire, including the synagogue." The fires were quelled only by sappers demolishing buildings to contain the spread.
The Police Battalion 309's war diary entries from June 27 and 28 mentioned the Great Synagogue catching fire due to "anti-tank gun shelling," leading to the blaze extending to the market square and the city's southern sector. According to the same source, "approximately 200 Russian soldiers, partisans and Jews" were killed "partly as a result of the exchange of fire." While one company attempted to douse the flames, the other two patrolled the city, "taking care of order and security", "teaching a lesson" to looters, recovering looted property and – "with the help of Jews" – clearing up the corpses that littered the streets. A subsequent report prepared by the Abwehr for the German press exaggeratedly detailed "raging street fighting," claiming the 221st Division commander personally led an assault on the municipal government headquarters and highlighted snipers purportedly hiding in the Great Synagogue and "targeting our scouts from behind".
However, these portrayals in German reports completely misrepresented reality, as the entering soldiers and policemen probably faced minimal resistance. The embellished descriptions of street fights aimed to mask the significant atrocities committed by the Germans that day, especially the fact that also some Wehrmacht soldiers participated in these actions.
The actual sequence of events has been reconstructed based on investigative and judicial materials collected after the war in West Germany. Former policemen interrogated in the 1960s and 1970s testified that their initial orders were to round up Soviet remnants and 'anti-German elements,' particularly Jewish men capable of carrying weapons. The battalion commander's orders did not specify what should be done with the detainees. In this context, a group of fanatical officers and non-commissioned officers took initiative, recalling Weiss's prior calls for the elimination of Jews and recognizing the Nazi leadership's view of the war with the Soviet Union as a 'clash of opposing ideologies.' Subsequently, the city's combing swiftly devolved into an orgy of violence and looting.
Some former policemen attributed this escalation to Lt. Heinrich "Pipo" Schneider and other officers from the 3rd company. Christian Gerlach placed the primary responsibility for initiating the pogrom on the 1st company and its commander, Cpt. Hans Behrens. Conversely, Edward B. Westermann indicates that both companies were equally involved in the murder and terrorization of Jews. The policemen's brutal conduct might have been influenced by their earlier looting of numerous alcohol stores upon entering Białystok. Meanwhile, the battalion commander seemed unable or unwilling to curb his subordinates.
However, certain authors tend to assign a more significant role to him in the events of June 27. Daniel Goldhagen, in particular, believes that the massacre was planned and ordered by Weiss from the outset. Gerlach, though, contends that some policemen's testimonies about a clear order to murder Jews, purportedly received personally from Adolf Hitler by the battalion, were part of their trial strategy.
The massacre
A few hours after entering Białystok, members of Police Battalion 309 surrounded the Jewish-inhabited district in the city center known as Szulhojf. Soon, the pogrom extended to the Piaski district and the Fish Market (Rynek Rybny) area. Jewish men and boys were forcibly taken from streets and homes, either to Kościuszko Square or to the Great Synagogue on Wilcza Street. Former policemen's postwar testimonies mentioned assistance from some local Poles in identifying Jews. Subsequently, one of the battalion's subunits received orders to kill all the Jews who refused to open their doors.
Captured Jews were subjected to severe beating and humiliation. The policemen forced them to dance and sing religious songs. There were also cases of setting fire to the beards of Orthodox Jews. Some others were forced to shout, "I am Jesus Christ." A group of Jews went to the headquarters of the 221st Security Division to beg its commander for intervention. However, when they fell to their knees, General Johann Pflugbeil turned his back and a policeman present at the headquarters urinated on them. Elsewhere, a certain police officer expressed disapproval of his colleagues' conduct, only to be told in response: "You don't seem to have received the right ideological training yet."
Hundreds of Jews were killed in Białystok that day. Some were executed in their homes or on the streets, while others were taken to execution sites on the city outskirts. Mass executions occurred, notably in the park surrounding the Branicki Palace. The policemen also murdered the patients in the Jewish hospital. These mass executions persisted into the night, carried out under parking lights. Additionally, there are reports implicating Wehrmacht soldiers in the violence; while some sources mention individual soldiers, others implicate the entire subunit of the 350th Infantry Regiment.
The most significant massacre occurred at the Great Synagogue, where German policemen herded hundreds of captured Jews alongside several others seeking refuge there. Estimates vary widely; some suggest the count could have reached as high as 2,500, while others estimate it much lower, around 500. The count of around 700 to 800 is likely closer to the actual figure. Among them were women with children. The policemen sealed the synagogue doors and formed a double cordon around the building. They brought in trucks carrying barrels of gasoline, pouring the contents over the walls. In the evening, Lt. Schneider ordered the synagogue to be set ablaze, using hand grenades to ignite the fire. Policemen shot those attempting to escape through windows, including children lifted by their parents in desperate attempts for mercy. A Pole named Józef Bartoszko (a Shabbos goy), risking his life, opened the synagogue's back door, allowing a dozen to thirty Jews to escape.
The grenades' explosions spread the fire to neighboring buildings. Jews fleeing the flames were killed by the policemen. Major Weiss only ordered firefighting efforts when the fire endangered the battalion's vehicles. Houses were blown up to contain the blaze, resulting in the deaths of those inside.
Estimates vary regarding the number of Jews murdered in Białystok on June 27. The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 estimate the number of victims from 2,000 to 3,000 individuals. Christopher Browning estimated between 2,000 and 2,200 victims, while Philip Blood suggested around 3,000. Other historians estimate that the number of victims was at least 2,000. The day was memorialized as "Black Friday" in Białystok's history, with Holocaust survivors also recalling it as "Red Friday" or "Bloody Friday". The victims of this massacre were referred to by surviving Jews as the "Friday victims".
Despite the chaotic and arbitrary nature of these atrocities, German authorities didn't hold the policemen accountable or take any disciplinary actions. Major Weiss and General Pflugbeil commended the members of Police Battalion 309 for their actions, with Weiss even being nominated for the Iron Cross, 2nd class.