Witold Pilecki with his son Andrzej in a pen for calves

Sukurcze (near Lida) – The Pilecki family estate which avoided confiscation by the Russians after the January Uprising since it was registered as a property of Witold Pilecki’s grandmother, Maria Domeyko, and under her maiden name. Since 1918, Witold’s parents and his siblings had lived there. Witold settled in Sukurcze for good in 1926. Until the outbreak of World War II, he lived there with his wife and children. After the Soviet invasion of 17 September 1939, those lands were conquered by the Red Army and in consequence of the post-war alteration of the borders (an outcome of the Yalta Conference of 1945) they were incorporated into the USSR (The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic). By the 1990s, the estate had been totally devastated: the manor house was demolished, the ponds were backfilled and the old trees were cut down. Today, there is no trace of the Sukurcze estate.