1 Execution site(s)
Ilarii Ch., born in 1928: "I saw the shooting from the road, about 150m away. It was conducted after 12pm. I remember it well because it was a Sunday, and that day many people went for to church for mass. With a friend of mine, we climbed on a cherry tree to get a better view. The Jews had to stop at the foot of the hill. The shooters stayed at about 30m away from them. When the shooting started, some of the Jews tried to run away, but the soldiers continued to fire with their machine guns. The Jews were shot on the ground. The pit was dug afterwards by local requisitioned villagers. The pit was 5m by 5m.”(Witness n°2319U, interviewed in Kostyntsi, on October 21, 2017)
"When the Soviet troops left Bukovina, all the Jews in the village went (illegible) to make a declaration. In good faith, all the Jews in the village went. They were all arrested and locked up in the elementary school. They stayed there for three days without food or water. Three days later, they were put in a column and taken to a field, not far from the village. All of them were shot: women, children and men (420 Jews). Then the villagers buried them in a single grave." [Archives Serviciul Român de Informații; RG25.00M, Reel 15, p. 543]
Kostyntsi is a village located in the historic region of Bukovina, 28 km (16,5mi) east of Chernivtsi. Before the First World War, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was under Romanian control during the interwar period. In 1940, it was occupied by the Soviet Union. The first records of the town’s small Jewish community date back to the 18th century. According to local villagers, they lived mainly in the center. They were either merchants or artisans. On the eve of the Second World War, several hundred Jews remained in the locality.
Kostyntsi was occupied by the Romanians in July 1941. Shortly after their arrival, all the Jews were summoned to the elementary school under the pretext of a meeting or registration. The ones who showed up (the majority of the village’s Jews), were locked up the for a couple of days. They did not have any food or water and were not allowed to leave the premises. Three days later, the inmates were taken outside the village in the field and shot. They were all shot together by Romanians. Afterwards, their corpses were buried in a specially dug pit by requisitioned local villagers. The shooting was conducted on a Sunday, but it was impossible for Yahad to determine the exact date. Today, there is a memorial near mass grave where the bodies were buried.
Do you have additional information regarding a village that you would like to share with Yahad ?
Please contact us at contact@yahadinunum.org
or by calling Yahad – In Unum at +33 (0) 1 53 20 13 17