Liady, Once Famous As Jewish Religious Center, Destroyed by Germans; All Jews Killed

Jews in the United States , no doubt, still remember the town of Liady, in the Vitebsk area, which was famous for its “Liader Rebbe” and for producing taleisim and tefilin.

The town no longer exists. This correspondent just returned from the Vitebsk region and found only one single house intact in Liady. The rest are nothing but ashes and ruins. “Where are the people ?” I asked an old Byelo-Russian who was rummaging in the ashes. The man silently pointed to the river, “There they are, ” he quietly said. “They are resting under the ground beyond the river.”

I have seen all sorts of gruesome sights on the Russian front, but nothing can be compared with what I saw on the outskirts of Liady. Mounds of dead bodies piled three yards high filled a deep ditch. Nobody knew the number of dead buried there, but there were probably almost as many as there were people in Liady. Here lay bodies and old people – all the Jews of Liady, In my presence the bodies of four infants were lifted from the grave. One of them still had a teething ring in its mouth. Then the bodies of two children and four women were brought up. The dead lay in postures that defy description. Next to me stood an old Byelorussian woman, crossing herself as the bodies were exhumed. Suddenly, she turned away from the grave said to me. “Now they are only corpses, but to me they are neighbors whom I used to know well.”

From this old woman I learned that all the Jews in the town were shot by the Germans in April or May of 1942 and buried in this anti-tank ditch, which the Jews had been forced to widen and deepen before they were shot. When the ditch had been dug to a depth that satisfied the Germans, groups of 30 or 40 Jews were forced to lie down in the trench. German tommy-gunners walked to the edge of the ditch and fired into their victims crotched below. Some persons were killed, while others were only wounded but as soon as the Nazis stopped shooting, a layer of earth was thrown over the dead and wounded alike. Those who sought to rise were finished off with blows from rifle-butts. Children who fought against going into the ditch were also clubbed and thrown in.

As the bodies were being carried up, a commission of doctors and military authorities stood by recording all the details. In reply to my question as to whether they knew what German unit was responsible for the massacre, a major answered grimly “We don’t know as yet, but we’ll find out.”

A projected agreement between the Deputies and the World Jewish Congress for the establishment of a liason committee to deal jointly with the problems of aiding Jews in occupied countries has been dropped because of opposition from the Anglo Jewish Association, which had threatened to sever all connection with the Deputies if the plan was put into effect. Prof. Selif Brodetsky, president of the Board, announced that the organization has made separate agreements with both the Congress and the Association for “exchange of information.” In addition, the Board will consult with the Association “when matters of major importance arise” and also on post war problems.