In mid-August 1942, a rumor spread among the Jews of Wysock, of pits being dug just outside the town by local villagers, who had been told that these pits would be used to store fuel. Yet, according to one testimony, several ghetto inmates were also selected to dig these pits. According to another testimony, the head of the Judenrat, Yitzhak Goldberg, asked the German authorities as to the purpose of these pits, and was allegedly told that they had been dug for war needs. Early in the morning of September 9, the ghetto was surrounded by SD and gendarmes (men of the German Rural Order Police, headed by Herrmann), who had arrived in Wysock from the neighboring town of Stolin and were assisted by several dozen Ukrainian auxiliary policemen. They drove the inmates out of their homes. At about 9-10 AM, all the Jews had to assemble in the center of the ghetto, where they were ordered to kneel, and the Germans began to search them for gold, valuables, and clothes. The Jews were then split into three groups of 500 persons each, and marched to a field on the bank of the Horyn River, south of the town. The groups left the ghetto one after the other, with each group taking a different route, and they were all escorted by armed Germans and Ukrainian auxiliary policemen. During the march, some Jews managed to run away, but many of the fugitives were recaptured and taken to the same murder site. The bodies of the Jews who had been killed during the escape attempt were likewise brought to that site to be buried. Upon reaching the murder site, the Jews – mostly women, children, and elderly people – were ordered to strip naked and forced to climb down into the pit (using special stairs carved inside it) in groups of five. They were then ordered to lie face down in the pit, and shot in the back of the head by the members of a Security Police (Sipo) detachment from Pińsk, which had likewise come to the town. The killers used machine guns. As soon as one group was killed, another row of victims would be positioned on top of their bodies and shot dead in the same manner. Many little children and nursing infants were buried alive. Several SS men, positioned above the pits, were finishing off the victims who had been wounded, but were still alive. Gendarmes and Ukrainian policemen from the towns of Stolin, Wysock, and probably Dawidgródek, as well, participated in this murder operation. The mass shooting lasted several hours. The mass graves were then filled in by local villagers. After the shooting, the Germans appropriated most of choicest possessions of the murdered Jews, storing them in the town of Stolin, while the shoddier articles were sold off to locals in Wysock. According to several testimonies, some high-quality items were sold off in exchange for agricultural produce. Peters, the German landwirte (commissar) of Wycosk, was in charge of this murder operation.

More information: Yad Vashem

On September 9, 1942, as one of the columns was being escorted to the killing site on the bank of the Horyn River, some Jews, following a signal given by one of their number, attempted to escape by swimming across that river, which lay nearby. The Germans and Ukrainian policemen opened fire on them as they ran away, and pursued them in boats. A number of Jews managed to reach the other bank of the river and escape into the nearby forest, while others drowned, or were shot dead in the water by the policemen.

More information: Yad Vashem