1 Killing site(s)
Oksana P., born in 1930: “In summer, about two years after the start of the occupation, the Jews were assembled, lined up and taken towards the Polish cemetery. There was a ravine there. I heard gunfire coming from there. There was a lot of fog that day so many Jews were able to escape. Later, in autumn, they were found and taken back to the village on two carts. I was herding my cows to the pasture when I saw the Jews get off the carts, fully undress and climb down into a pit. I saw a mother lay down in the pit with her three children before being shot in the head by a man. The other Jews waited their turn, they walked up to the edge of pit on their own.” (Witness n°YIU/2897U, interviewed in Sharivka, on December 12, 2020)
Sharivka is a small village in the Khmelnytskyi region, western Ukraine, located 26 km (16mi) south of Khmelnytskyi. The earliest references to the village date back to the 15th century. The first Jews started to settle in Sharivka in the 17th century. According to the 1897 census, there were 753 Jews living in Sharivka, making up 36% of the total population. In the 20th century, before the war, there was a Jewish kolkhoz, a Jewish school, a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery. Most Jews owned shops, but some were also craftsmen and there was a Jewish doctor according to a witness interviewed by Yahad. In 1926, 647 Jews lived in Sharivka, making up only 26% of the town’s total population.
Sharivka was occupied by German forces on July 8, 1941. The Jews were left unharmed for the first year and a half of the occupation and continued living in their homes and working in their shops. On November 4, 1942, the Jews were all taken from their homes, assembled in groups and then led to a clay quarry near the Polish cemetery. Anyone too weak to walk was taken there on a cart. There were also some Jews who had fled from Zinkiv, Mikhailivka, Pradivka and Sukivtsi. Once on the site, the Jews had to undress before being shot in groups of 7-8 people. Around the same number of shooters perpetrated the shooting. Individuals taken to the site on the carts were undressed by the Germans or policemen and then thrown into the pit. Because it was a very foggy day, many managed to escape, but they were later found and either shot on the spot or taken to Yarmolyntsi, where they were shot at a later date. About 300 Jews were executed in Sharivka.
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