On August 23, 1942, early in the morning, German forces and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen who had surrounded Turzysk several days earlier drove the Jews from their homes and collected them at the square in front of the town's synagogue. The Jews were instructed to bring with them food for one day and also their most valuable possessions since, according to one testimony, they were supposedly going to be transferred to another ghetto, apparently in another part of the town. According to other testimony, the Jews were told that they would be taken to the nearby city of Kowel. The Germans tried to select a few specialist workers whom they still needed, but some of them refused to leave their fellow Jews and remained with the main group. Then the Jews were marched in a column under the guard of the Ukrainian auxiliary policemen in the direction of Kowel. After about 2 kilometers the Jews were ordered to stop near an abandoned brick factory. Upon their arrival at the murder site the victims - primarily women, children, and elderly people - were ordered to strip naked and then taken in groups of 5 to the edge of a prepared pit and shot to death in the back of the head with automatic weapons. The shooting was carried out by a murder squad of Security Police and SD, assisted by members of the German Gendarmerie and the Ukrainian auxiliary police. During the shooting there were acts of resistance on the part of several Jews. At the same time several young men, including the pharmacist Zelman Zilbertest, who succeeded in hiding in the town, set several houses on fire in an act of resistance. This caused a great conflagration that destroyed many houses in the town. Many Jews died as a consequence. Erich Kassner, Gebietskommissar (distract commissar) of Kowel and Fritz Manthei, the chief of Kowel's urban order police (Schutzpolizei), were in charge of this murder operation.

More information: Yad Vashem