Śladów Massacre Memorial

A tall concrete obelisk stands on the Vistula embankment at the edge of the Kampinos Forest. Here, on 18 September 1939, in the last days of the Battle of the Bzura, Wehrmacht soldiers shot Polish prisoners of war and civilians from the surrounding villages. Historians count the Śladów massacre among the worst crimes committed in September 1939.

History: the crime on the "Słówka" embankment

After the Poznań and Pomorze armies were broken on the Bzura, soldiers tried to make their way across the Vistula and through the Kampinos Forest to Warsaw. Near Śladów a dozen or so cavalrymen held out on the embankment to the end; the Germans broke their resistance by using captured civilians as a human shield. The civilians and a large group of prisoners who had already surrendered were then lined up on the embankment known as "Słówka" and machine-gunned. Some died on the spot, others were pushed into the river, and those trying to swim to the far bank were shot.

The death toll is usually given as over 300: about 150 prisoners of war – wounded and unwounded soldiers from broken units – and about 150 civilians, including 84 residents of what was then Tułowice municipality and refugees from across Poland. Some historians caution that this figure rests on a single witness account and may have been lower. Only two people survived. The perpetrators, soldiers of a Wehrmacht armoured unit, were never clearly identified.

What to see

• The obelisk – concrete, erected in 1966 on the site of the crime.
• The 2008 plaque – funded by the residents of Brochów municipality and the people of Sochaczew county. It mentions 252 Polish soldiers shot after being taken prisoner and 106 residents of Śladów and nearby forest villages murdered for helping the fighting units – figures that differ from historians' estimates.
• The landscape – the embankment and riverside thickets through which the soldiers tried to escape.

Did you know?

An exhumation probably took place in 1942: the prisoners were reburied in the war cemetery at Janówek, and the civilian victims in the parish cemeteries of Brochów, Kamion and Leoncin. During the occupation 37% of the inhabitants of the then Tułowice municipality lost their lives.

Tripto tip

The memorial is about 7 km north of Brochów, by the road to the Vistula in Śladów. Allow 15–20 minutes on site. Combine it with the fortified church in Brochów – some of the victims lie in the parish cemetery there – and with Żelazowa Wola.