In August 1941 the Germans shot 38 young Jewish men (according to another source – 36 men and a woman) at the Jewish cemetery. Rumors circulated in the town that the Germans had a list of the people they were going to execute. The Germans selected their victims, took them to the Jewish cemetery, forced them to dig pits, and then shot them in the pits.

More information: Yad Vashem

The ghetto of Wiszniew was liquidated on Sunday August 30, 1942. At 2:00 a.m., armed soldiers surrounded the ghetto. Its inmates were assembled in the synagogue courtyard and forced to lie on the ground; anyone who raised his head was shot. After a roll call, the Jews were taken under guard to the village of Helenowo, ca. 1-1.5 kilometers northeast of Wiszniew, to the ruins of a former hay shed. There the Germans, assisted by local policemen, lined up the Jews in rows of about 20-30 against a wall inside the shed and then mowed them down with a machine-gun. When the shooting started, many of the Jews who were bit yet in the shed, tried to run for their lives, but almost all of them were caught and shot on the spot. When there was no more room in the shed, the building was set on fire. Thus, not only the dead, but also those who were only wounded, and also the children who had been thrown into the shed alive were burned. Various sources estimate the number of those killed on that day as 1,300, 1,500, or 2,000.

More information: Yad Vashem