1 Killing site(s)
Vasyl K., born in 1927, answers the question: “YIU: Did you go to the site after the shooting?
W: Yes, we went afterwards. During the execution, everyone was afraid to go there.
YIU: When you went there, had the pit already been covered?
W: It was not covered. They were shot in a big shell hole. Once everyone was shot, they didn’t fill in the pit. They fired several times with submachine guns over the corpses and left. There were people both alive and dead inside. (Testimony n°2007, interviewed in Novohlynyane, on April 04, 2016)
“On the night of October 10, 1941, the Germans knocked at my door. I opened the door and went out and at this moment, the gendarmes and German soldiers, were running amok with weapons, rushed into my house searching for someone. They entered in each houses and forced the Jews out and rounded them up on a vehicle. Once the vehicle was completely full, they were taken to the field where they were executed. I knew after that they were executed 2km away from Novohlynyane, close to the railroad in the shell hole. The corpses were thrown in the shell hole and covered with soil. On May 20, 1944, I participated in the exhumation process and I saw that the corpses were thrown in bulk, partially decomposed.”
[Deposition of the local resident Evdokia S., 42 years old, to Stated Soviet commission; RG.22-002M. Fond 7021, Opis 66, Delo 123]
Novohlynyane is a village located 92km South West of Kirovohrad. According to the witness, back then it was an agricultural kolkhoz called Trud which cultivated beats and different kind of cereals. There was also sheep, poultry and horse breeding. Half of the population was Jewish. They lived behind the railroad while Ukrainians and Moldovans lived on another side of the road. There was a common school which had about fifty Jewish and non-Jewish children. There was a synagogue. The village was occupied. The Germans occupied the region in August 1941. By that time many Jews managed to flee to the East.
Straight after the German arrival the Jews continued to live normally in their houses until the major Aktion which was conducted on October 10, 1941. During the aktion all the Jews were rounded up from their houses and taken in trucks 2.5-3 m away from Novohlynyane where they were executed in the shell hole close to the railroads. According to the local witness, the shell hole measured 5 meters long and 6m large. Before being killed the Jews were lined up at the edge of the pit while five shooters remained on another side of the pit. They fired in their faces and the victims fell inside the pit. During this Aktion 57 Jews were murdered. The Aktion was conducted by a SS unit.
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