On March 16, 1942 a unit of the German Security Police, reinforced by a Latvian police battalion and by Belorussian auxiliary policemen, arrived from Wilejka. On the next day, they and the local auxiliary police assembled at Market Square all the Jews of Ilja, both those from the ghetto and those who were still at the tar factory. The local police told the collected Jews that they were going to be shot and demanded that they hand over their money and valuables. After none of the Jews carried out the order, the police promised that whoever gave up their money and valuables would be released. Those few who did give them up or told where they were keeping them at home were shot after that. A selection followed, during which a minority, consisting of skilled workers, along with their families, were returned to the ghetto. The rest, approximately 520 Jews, were taken under guard to an unfinished building for the cold storage of vegetables, located at the beginning of Revolyutsionnaya Street not far from the town center, and killed there. The wooden cold storage construction site had a pit in the middle. The victims were forced to undress and then taken in small groups to the pit, where they were shot. After the shooting, the SS poured gasoline into the pit and set it on fire by throwing a hand grenade into it. Immediately, some witnesses heard screams coming from the pit since many of the victims had only been wounded and some had fallen into the pit before the shooting and, thus, had not been shot. After this murder, the police searched the town for those Jews who had succeeded in hiding rather than coming to the market square; they found 64 Jews and shot them at the same place, Revolyutsionnaya Street. The SS ordered the Jewish "skilled workers", who had been spared for a while, to collect and bury the bodies of those Jews, mainly elderly or sick ones, who had been killed by the police. The ghetto in Ilja was liquidated on June 7, 1942. The German police arrived from Wilejka, assembled all the Jewish "skilled workers" (150 of them) who still remained in Ilja and shot them at the same place. Since this was in March when the ground was still too frozen to bury the bodies, the murderers poured gasoline over them and burned them.

More information: Yad Vashem