Petrivka (Petrovka) | Mykolaiv 

/ One of the rare houses that still exist and in which people live. ©Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum Local ambiance. The majority of the village is empty. There are only a few house foundations. ©Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum Vasyl V., born in 1932: “We had a lot of German soldiers here. On the other side, near the road to Mykolaiv. There were numerous German colonies.” ©Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum Yevdokia K., born in 1934: “One Jewish boy escaped and he ran. At that time they were driving a herd of cows across the field The Germans killed him. The cows started bawling above him.” ©Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum Vasyl V., born in 1932: “All the Jews who were brought to Petrivka were confined into a stable. The stable was 50m long and about 20m large.” ©Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum Vasyl V., born in 1932, takes Yahad’s team towards the execution site in Petrivka. ©Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum The execution site near the village of Petrivka where more than three hundred Jews were brought from Odessa and were murdered. They were shot in an animal remains pit. ©Aleksey Kasyanov/Yahad-In Unum

Execution of Jews in Petrivka

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Animal remains pit
Memorials:
No
Period of occupation:
1941-1944
Number of victims:
365

Witness interview

Yevdokia K., born in 1934: “Y.U.: Did you ever go to that house on the hill to see how the Jews were there?
Witness: The children would not go, but the older people would go and would bring food. And then when my dad brought hay, he went right away, threw down the bales of hay and went straight home. And one family, no, two families. There were two families left. They were told: “If someone has gold, we will not kill him.” So, that forced them to identify themselves. When dad brought the hay, everybody had been killed, except those two families. Then those two families were ordered to prepare themselves to be killed. “How is it possible? You said you will not kill those who had gold.” They were killed. As they were preparing to be killed, one woman crossed herself turning to four sides, and they were killed.” (Witness n°2731U, interviewed in Petrivka, on November 27, 2019)

Soviet archives

“During the occupation of the village of Lubyanka, from August 12, 1941, until March 21, 1944, the following crimes were committed:
On March 6, 1942, in the valley, located 500m away from Ursolovo [today Ursolivka], the fascists [illegible] the civil Jewish population, by shooting and torturing to death 150 people, including children and elderly people.
After having committed the crimes in the village of Ursolovo [today Ursolivka], the death squad arrived in the village of Lubyanka where the Jewish population was subjected to the same horrors as the Ursolovo Jews; the executioners shot dead 330 people, all adults. Their bodies were covered with hay dosed with flammable liquid and burned.
Besides these committed atrocities, the fascists continued their sinister job in the villages of Petrivka and Raidolyna where they perpetrated the same bloody horrors against the Jewish population by shooting 365 people. Their bodies were thrown into the animal remains pit and burned. In all, in the district of Lubianka 845 people of Jewish origin were shot and tortured to death. […]" [Act n°4, drawn up by Soviet State Extraordinary Commission (ChGK) on June 19, 1944; RG.22-002M: GARF 7021-68-178, p.430-435]

Historical note

Petrivka is located 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Mykolaiv. According to the local villagers before the war it was home to only Ukrainians and ethnic Russians.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

Petrivka was occupied by the German army in August 1941. As a result of the field research, Yahad-In Unum confirmed the archives that mentioned the shootings of the Odesa Jews in Petrivka. With the help of the local witnesses, Yahad could identify the execution sites and find out the details of how the executions were conducted. In February 1942, hundreds of Jews were brought from Odesa to Petrivka and nearby villages by the “Road of Death”.  The Jews brought to Petrivka, about 365, according to the archives, were placed in a henhouse that used to belong to a kolkhoz. After a one-month detention in the inhuman conditions, the Jews were taken to be shot. The execution was conducted in March 1942. Both groups of Jews detained in Lubyanka and Petrivka were shot at the same time in two different animal remains pits. The execution was conducted by German colonists, Volksdeutsche, natives of the colony Waterloo [today Stavky], who came for the purpose of the executions.

 After the execution the bodies were covered with hay dosed with flammable liquid and burned. The hay was brought by the requisitioned villagers. One Jewish boy managed to flee from the farm in Lubyanka where another group of Jews were detained, but he was caught and shot in Petrivka. Today, there is no monument or any marker on the site.

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