In the evening of July 12, 1943, around 10 pm a group of local youth talked in front of the house of Jadwiga Bernat, located right next to the forest in the part of the village called Dworzysko. Mikołaj, a Red Army soldier, who escaped from captivity and reached the village through the forests, joined the conversation, which was soon interrupted by the arrival of a group of people from the forest. Several men dressed in civilian clothes entered the courtyard and pretending to be partisans, they asked for milk. Waiting for the fulfilment of their request, they struck up a conversation with the gathered youth and asked tricky questions, and started unnoticeably encircling the group in a semi-circle. Although they spoke Polish, the boys became alert and did not want to continue the conversation. Suddenly, the silence of the moonlight night was disrupted by the shots of machine guns. 26-year-old Dionizy Bernat was killed, his friends Stanisław Cebula and Jan Koziej were murdered as well as Mikołaj, who died before he had time to draw out a gun. The Nazi Germans threw grenades into the houses of Jadwiga Bernat and the Cebula family. Helena Bernat was killed inside, and the grenades ripped apart Maria and Antoni Cebula. Panic broke out in the village. The grenades started fires in the buildings, people started running away to the nearby forest but the village was surrounded by the Nazi Germans. The frantic shooting of rifles and machine guns, and grenade bundles bursting were heard in the vicinity. Pillars of smoke and fire shot in the air. Who managed to flee far away, survived. Those who tried to salvage their properties died from bullets. The fire trucks from Żyrzyn and Osiny were coming to the rescue but the Germans did not let them through to put out the fire. Gamekeeper Rogala, seeing the fire, ran with all his strength to help. The German guards noticed him and sent a series of shots in his direction. Wounded Rogala hid in the buildings of Tomasz Furtak, who also got shot during the shooting. Both were captured and thrown into a burning barn. Furthermore, in the end the Nazi Germans organized a raid on the nearby forest. 12 households burnt down that night, 33 people were murdered, including five entire families. The complete list of victims is placed on the monument.¹