1 Execution site(s)
Raisa C. recalls: “At the site, there were Jewish women and children. But there were other gathering points in the town. After that, the Jews were placed under guard in the Jewish school. They stayed in this school for a while, then, the day of the shooting, they took the column of Jews to the shooting. I didn’t go to the site after the shooting”. (Witness N°631, interviewed in Khotimsk, on June 12, 2013).
“During the temporary occupation of Khotimsk, district of Khotimsk, from August 1941 to September 1943, the German fascist invaders carried out the systematic mass shootings of innocent Soviet civilians and prisoners of war of the Red Army. According to the name lists of witness depositions and obtained information, 860 people were shot, among them 293 women, 287 children and 223 other people were deported to Germany.” [Act drawn by the Soviet Extraordinary Commission, in May 1944, RG22.022M/7021-88/33].
Khotimsk is located about 168 kilometers east southeast of Mogilev. The Jewish population in 1939 was 786. There were a lot of Jews living on Sadovaya Street. They were tailors or bakers. The Germans occupied the village on August 15, 1941.
On July 12, 1942, the Germans gathered the Jews of Khotimsk in a Jewish school in order to register them. They tortured them and shot 24 Jews. The Jews were then held in the school as a ghetto for two months. During this period, some Jews were requisitioned to prepare large pits. On September 3-5, 1942, a detachment of Einsatzkommando 8 assisted by men from the Reserve Police Battalion 91 shot more than 300 Jews at the site of the flax mill. According to some sources, between 300 and 800 Jews were shot.
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