WARSAW (JTA) — The Polish Institute of National Remembrance launched an investigation into the murder of some Jewish women in a small northeastern Polish town during World War II.
Prosecutor Radoslaw Ignatiew is conducting the probe of an August 1941 incident in which Jewish women from the ghetto in Szczuczyn allegedly were hired by farmers to work at a nearby farm and then killed by scythes and hoes. Their bodies were buried in the field.
Ignatiew, who led the investigation of the Jedwabne massacre, said he believes that mass murders of Jewish women from the ghettos also occurred in other places.
Farmers reportedly paid the Germans for hiring farm workers from the ghetto. Ignatiew said that near Szczuczyn, 11 Jews were killed and that among the killers were three perpetrators of murders in the village of Bzury.
The case of the Bzury killings was discontinued in March 1950 because some of the alleged perpetrators died. Ignatiew said he knows the name of only one victim and is seeking information about the others who were killed.
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