After occupying Sopoćkinie in June 1941, the Germans ordered the newly formed Polish auxiliary police to denounce the Jews who had collaborated with the Soviets. Upon receiving a list of the “collaborators” (one of whom may have been the town rabbi), the Germans carried out a roundup of these Jews, and they shot the arrestees north of the town, near the Augustów Canal. During the resettlement of the Jews of Sopoćkinie into another ghetto in November 1942, the Germans shot the “useless” (i.e., elderly and infirm) inmates at the same site. The exact number of victims of the two massacres is unclear.

More information: Yad Vashem