Krynka | Mogilev

/ Ambiance in Krynka. © Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum The road by which the children were brought from the sanatorium to the execution site. © Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum Fiodor P., born in 1929: “The children between six and 12 years old were taken by cart to the execution site. They were told that they would be transferred to another sanatorium and they suspected nothing”. © Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum Sergey P., born in 1928: “The children were forced to come closer to the pit and were shot in groups. Some children must have fallen alive or were wounded in the pit. I can’t tell you exactly how many there were. ”© Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum Yahad team with the witness at the place where the sanatorium used to be © Aleksey Kasyanov/ Yahad-In Unum The memorial in the memory of 84 Jewish children from the sanatorium murdered in April 1942, in Krynka. (Execution site n°1) © Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum The execution place of two Jewish women shot by Germans in Krynka. (Execution site n°2) © Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum

Executions of Jews in Krynka

2 Execution site(s)

Kind of place before :
Forest (1); In the yard 2)
Memorials :
Yes
Period of occupation:
1941-1944
Number of victims :
Over 84

Witness interview

Fiodor V., born in 1929, remembered: “Shortly after the German arrival, the isolated shootings started. There were two Jewish women who were killed on the spot in their house. They were Germans who killed them. They entered inside the house and, without saying anything, fired at them. Then, they forced the local man who lived close by to bury the bodies in his garden. He did it because he did not have any choice. The next day, he unburied the bodies and buried them in another place.”(Testimony N°686, interviewed in Krynka, on July 18, 2013).

Historical note

Krynka is located about 150 km northwest of Mogilev. The village was founded in the middle of the 19th century. According to the local residents, there were Jews who lived in the village prior to war. They were artisans or worked in agriculture. There was a children’s tuberculosis sanatorium in the village. On the eve of the war, several dozen children remained in the sanatorium. The Germans occupied the village in early July 1941.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

Soon after the German arrival, the children’s tuberculosis sanatorium in Krynka was transformed into a ghetto. All Jewish children from the nearby villages were confined there as well. Children were forced to wear distinguishing yellow stars on their clothes. Due to poor conditions, a number of children died. On April 2, 1942, the children from the ghetto were lined up in two columns and taken on foot, escorted by Germans with dogs, to the ravine in the forest where the requisitioned local residents had dug a pit in advance. Once on the site, they were thrown inside the pit in groups of seven or eight and the Germans fired at them from the edge of the pit. 84 Jewish children were killed that day. According to the witness, there was also a shooting of two local Jews in a garden in Krynka.

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