Vremi︠a︡ sobiratʹ kamni
Evrei mestechka I︠A︡novichi
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Vitebsk
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On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and World War II began. Polish refugees fled to the Soviet Union to escape Nazi troops. There were many Jews among them. Refugees also appeared in Yanovichi. They told terrible details about the Nazi occupation and the genocide of the Jews. But people didn't want to believe it.
When the war broke out, not many of the Janoviches left or went east. The old men remembered the Germans after the First World War and believed that they should not be afraid. At that time, we had Jewish refugees from Poland in Janowicz, and we also had a guy living in our house, a Polish Jew who fled to the USSR two years ago and knew well what the Germans were doing to the Jews. However, local Jews were distrustful of stories of Nazi atrocities. The retreating soldiers also advised the Jews to leave, but even when the glow of burning Vitebsk was visible above the horizon, only twelve families left Janowice. Half of them came back. They, along with the remaining Jews, were killed by the Nazis.
Almost seventy years have passed since that tragic day when, in September 1941, the Nazis and their local accomplices shot the Jews of Yanovichi. Time is inexorable and today witnesses of this atrocity can be counted on fingers.
