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1 Execution site(s)
Valentyna K., born in 1929, remembered: “It was a natural ravine; the Jews were lined up on the edge of this ravine and shot with a submachine gun. There were also 4 Jews who managed to escape. These Jews were brought from Novomyrhorod. During the shooting we were standing near our barn; there were no trees before so we could clearly see the killing. The Jews were screaming; it was terrifying”. (Testimony n°2018, interviewed in Martonosha, on April 8, 2016)
“In the fall of 1943, about 220 Jews, women, children and elderly people were gathered, put in trucks and brought to the deep ravine which was located in the village of Martonosha. They were undressed and shot”. [Act drawn by the State Extraordinary Commission on June 21, 1944. RG 22.002M. Fond 7021, Opis 66, Delo 124]
Martonosha is located about 55 km southwest from Kirovograd and 14 km north from Novomyrhorod. According to the witness, there was only one Jewish family in the village. However, there were a lot of Jews living in the nearby towns such as Novomyrhorod and Zlatopil. Novomyrhorod is located on the banks of the Velyka Vys River about 65 km northwest of Kirovohrad. Since 1959 Zlatopil became the part of Myrhorod. Back then it was a village located 5km away from Novomyrhorod an 80% Jewish population. The records about the first Jewish community in Novomyrhorod date back to the middle and the end of 18th century. By 1897 1,622 Jews lived in Novomyrhorod representign less than 20% of the total population. The majority of them worked in small trade business and handcraft. There was a synagogue and Jewish school in the village. Some Jews worked in the pharmacy, there were teachers and lawyers among them. According to the witness, in 1939 under the Soviet order the synagogue was burned. Due to two pogroms conducted in 1919, and relocation of Jewish to bigger cities, the Jewish population dropped roughly. During the pogrom in May 1919, 200 Jews were killed and their shops and houses were looted. On the eve of the war, only 315 Jews lived in Novomyrhorod (13% of the total population) and 1,047 in Zlatopil, comprising only 26% of the total population. The town was occupied by Germans on August 1-2, 1941. About 10-15% of the prewar Jews managed to flee to the East by that time.
In spring 1943 for 3 days, the prisoners of the war were forced by Germans to dig a pit in the ravine, 300 meters away from the village. Later two groups of Jews were taken from Novomyrhorod and Zlatopil in trucks to Martonosha. According to the local witness, once on the site, the Jews were lined up on the edge of the ravine and shot with submachine guns. The shooting was conducted during the night. The same night, according to the witness, the policemen searched children of mixed marriages in Matronosha. As a result, three children were shot in another pit. There were several shooting of Jews in the villages close to Novomyrhorod.
For more information about the executions of Jews from Novomyrhorod and Zlatopil, please, refer to the corresponding profile.
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