On the morning of September 27, 1941, the Jewish population of Lyady was assembled in the western part of the town. After they were subjected to various humiliations, several Jews were forced to dig a pit. In the afternoon, the Germans brought seven young male and female Jewish partisans to the pit (among them former residents of Lyady) and shot them. That same day, the Jews were taken to the old Jewish cemetery. The Germans took all the youth, separated the boys and the girls, publicly beat them, and locked them in a nearby shed. They then declared that if the Jewish population of Lyady failed to collect gold and other valuables, all the hostages would be shot. Meanwhile, the Germans selected twenty-five Jewish males, members of the intelligentsia as well as artisans, transported them to the opposite bank of the Mereya River near the village of Plauny, and shot them. Three days later, the Germans permitted the relatives of the Jewish victims to bury them in the new Jewish cemetery.

More information: Yad Vashem

On April 2, 1942, the first day of Passover, about 1,800 Jews who had been assembled in the Lyady ghetto were transferred in groups of 100 - 200 people across the bridge to the opposite bank of the Mereya River, in Krasnoye County, Smolensk District. They were then stripped and shot into an anti-tank trench. The mass murder operation lasted three days. In early March 1942, all the Jews in Lyady as well as those from towns and villages in the vicinity were concentrated in a ghetto set up in the local school. The site was surrounded with barbed wire and guarded by Germans and Belarussian police. Non-Jews were forbidden to venture anywhere near the ghetto. No one was allowed out of the ghetto except for Jews who worked at the local kolkhoz or who buried the dead. Hunger, overcrowding, and disease soon claimed many lives. A number of ghetto inhabitants managed to escape and join the partisans.

More information: Yad Vashem