Krynka | Mogilev

/ Ambiance in Krynka. ©Les Kasyanov/Yahad - In Unum The road down which the children were taken from the sanatorium to the execution site. ©Les Kasyanov/Yahad - In Unum Fiodor P., born in 1929: “Children between 6 and 12 years old were taken to the execution site by cart. They were told that they would be transferred to another sanatorium and they suspected nothing”. ©Les 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 of them must have fallen in alive or were only wounded in the pit. I can’t tell you exactly how many there were.” ©Les Kasyanov/Yahad - In Unum The Yahad team with a witness at the site of the former sanatorium. ©Les Kasyanov/Yahad - In Unum The memorial for 84 Jewish children from the sanatorium murdered in Krynka in April 1942. (Execution site n°1). ©Les Kasyanov/Yahad - In Unum The execution site of two Jewish women shot by Germans in Krynka. (Execution site n°2). ©Les 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: “Shortly after the Germans’ arrival, isolated shootings started. Two Jewish women who were killed in their home by the Germans. They entered inside the house and fired at them without saying anything. They then forced a local man who lived nearby to bury the bodies in his garden. He did it because he didn’t have a choice. The next day, he exhumed the bodies and buried them in another location.” (Testimony N°686, interviewed in Krynka, on July 18, 2013).

Historical note

Krynka is located about 150km northwest of Mogilev. The village was founded in the middle of the 19th century. According to the local residents, there were Jewish residents in the village before the 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. The children were forced to wear distinguishing yellow stars on their clothes. A number of them perished due to poor living conditions. On April 2, 1942, the children from the ghetto were lined up in two columns and taken to the ravine in the forest bn foot, escorted by Germans with dogs, 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.

Nearby villages

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