1 Killing site(s)
Mykola M., born in 1927: Y. U. : Were there only Ukrainians in your village before the war, or maybe there were also Russians, Roma, and Jews?
Witness : I don’t remember other nationalities living there, only Ukrainians. The Jews lived in Verkhivka, that was their shtetl. There was also a Jewish shtetl in Obodivka. I knew many Jews, because I went to school in Verkhivka.
Y. U. : Do you remember their names ?
Witness : There were Moldavsky Helyk, Moldavsky Benchyk, he had sons called Aron, Davyd, Zynovii, and a daughter called Golda, I remember them. I also remember Herman, he was a salesman in Mala Stratiivka, I also remember a man called Itsko, I don’t know his real name. Our women used to go to shtetl to order some clothes, there were some tailors there. They were in contact with Jews. Moldavsky Helyk was in charge of feeding station in Ladyzhyn, and Moldavsky Benchyk was in charge of a mill in Verkhivka.” (Witness n°2671U, interviewed in Trostianets, on October 23, 2019)
Mala Stratiivka is located 150km (93mi) southeast of Vinnytsia. According to the residents interviewed by Yahad, Mala Stratiivka was home to Ukrainians; no Jews lived in the village before the war. There were three kolkhozes [collective farms] in the village. Agriculture was the main occupation. The Jews lived in the nearby towns of Obodivka and Verkhnivka.
Mala Stratiivka was occupied by German and Romanian forces on July 28, 1941. The village remained under the Romanians and became part of Transnistria in September 1941. In November 1941, hundreds of Jews - men, women, and children among them- were brought from Bessarabia and Bukovina and placed in the premises that belonged to the collective farm. The buildings were not fenced in, although it was forbidden for the Jewish people to leave the territory. Over the winter 1941-1942, dozens of people died from the typhus and lack of food. Their bodies were buried 1km away from the collective farm. Those Jews who survived the winter were resettled in the ghettos in Obodivka and Dubyna. Unfortunately, the field research didn’t allow Yahad to establish the approximate number of victims.
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