1 Execution site(s)
Maria A., born in 1923: "Many refugees started to pass by our village once the war broke out. They arrived in late July – early August before the Germans. Some of them just passed by while others settled in. One elderly Jewish couple with two young girls stayed with us. The girls were about 17-18 years old. During this time, they worked at the collective farm. Their father was a shoemaker, he worked as well and made some money. Their mother would stay at home all the time. My grandmother said that they had gold and other valuables, and they were afraid that someone would steal it. That is why a family member always watched their belongings. They lived with us for two months or so. But two days after the Germans arrived, they disappeared." (Witness n°620R, interviewed in Pimeno Cerhni, on November 23, 2015)
"On November 29, 1942, German and Romanian soldiers imprisoned 30 Soviet soldiers. 14 Soviet prisoners of war were shot in the central square of the village and their bodies were buried at the edge of the same square next to a garden.
In August 1942, the Germans and Romanians shot two girls, a 30-year-old man, and a 17-year-old boy, as well as twenty-four Soviet prisoners of war and refugees, including two women. All of these people were refugees and therefore unknown to the locals. The shooting took place in a ravine northwest of the village." [Summary of the act drawn up by Soviet Extraordinary Commission (ChGK) on November 30, 1943; RG 22.002M: GARF Fond 7021, Opis 45, Delo 4]
Pimeno-Cherni is a Russian village located on the right bank of the Aksay Kurmoyarsky River. It is 166km (105mi) southwest of Volgograd. The village was founded as a khutor [settlement] in the early 19th century. Back then, it was called “khutor Romanov.” In 1859, only 159 people lived there. Pimeno-Cherni was home to Russians and Ukrainians. The village’s local population was mainly involved in agriculture. When WWII broke out, dozens of Jewish refugees passed by the village from German-occupied Ukraine.
Pimeno-Cherni was occupied by the Germans in early August 1942. According to the Soviet archives, the Germans arrested about 24 Jewish refugees, including women, children, and elderly people, after the occupation began. They were taken to be shot in a ravine outside of the village along with a dozen Soviet POWs. The execution was conducted by the Germans with Romanian assistance.
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