2 Execution site(s)
Volodymyr M., born in 1935: “My uncle was requisitioned to fill in the pit. His house wasn’t far from the shooting site. My brother and I went to see him, and, on the way, we heard gunshots. The shooting didn’t last more than thirty minutes. We didn’t see the shooting itself, but when we went to the site, we saw Germans in green uniforms, armed with machine guns leaving in two sidecars. My uncle was filling the pit in. In all, there were three pits in the forest. I didn’t go up to the pit, we waited aside until my uncle was done and then we came back home.” (Testimony n°2565U, interviewed in Korolivka, on March 25, 2019)
"In the locality of Korolivka, the Germano-fascist invaders shot 11 innocent Soviet civilians, burned 9 people alive. In addition, 40 unknown Soviet citizens were shot in the village. The shooting was directed by a gestapo man Emmanuïl R***, helped by Aleksandr S." [Act n°39 drawn up by Soviet State Extraordinary Commission (ChGK) on May 31, 1945; GARF 7021-60-316, p.577]
Korolivka is located 100 km (65mi) northwest of Zhytomyr and 10 km (6mi) northeast of Yemilchyne. According to local villagers, three Jewish families lived in Korolivka before the war. They had shops. The Jewish children went to the same school as the non-Jews. A big Jewish community lived in the nearby town of Yemilchyne, where, prior to the war, 1,115 Jews lived, comprising 21% of the total population.
Korolivka was occupied by Wehrmacht troops in early July 1941. According to local witnesses interviewed by Yahad, all the local Jews managed to evacuate before the Germans arrived. Several Jews however came to hide in the village, but after having stayed for a couple of days, continued on their way. Yahad field research managed to identify the execution site of about 40 innocent people, mainly Jews, murdered most probably in the summer of 1941. The Jews were brought to the village by Germans in black uniform from Yemilchyne and confined in the school building for a short period. One or two days later, they were taken to the forest located 3 km away to be shot. According to the Soviet archives, eleven people non-Jews were also shot and nine were burned alive in their homes as a reprisal action against the partisans.
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