During the first days of the occupation, an SS squad consisting of twenty men arrived in Zelwa. The SS rounded up all the local Jews and picked eighteen educated men (teachers, lawyers, bookkeepers, etc.). They separated these men from the rest and told them that they would be given better work. According to some eyewitness accounts, the Germans added fifteen of the better-dressed Jews to this group. These eighteen (or thirty-three) men were shot in the Bereżki Forest, east of the town.

More information: Yad Vashem