The investigative unit of the National Remembrance Institute (IPN) will ask the Byelorussian prosecution authorities to open an investigation into the [war] crime committed at Naliboki in the Nowogrodek district.

The [Polish] investigation of this crime has been conducted since April 1996 by the District Commission for Prosecuting Crimes against the Polish Nation in Lodz. The Lodz IPN reopened it on March 20, 2001. The crime has been brought again to light recently by the Polish Canadian Congress.

According to the current results of the investigation, in Naliboki, during the night of 8/9 May 1943, Soviet partisans massacred the Polish population.

128 men and 3 women were killed. These people were led out of their homes at night, and shot. Their property was stolen, and their homes burnt.

Apart from the massacre in Naliboki, the IPN wants to investingate also the shooting of 10 people in the village of Derevno (December 1943), and the execution of 19 soldiers of the Home Army (AK) in Kamien (May 1943).

Note: The circumstances of the Naliboki massacre, in which participated the Jewish units "Jerusalem" (commander Bielski) and "Pobeda" (commander Zorin) are described at http://www.kpk.org/KPK/toronto/koniuchy.pdf (pages 24-25 and footnotes)

Mariusz Wesolowski