1 Execution site(s)
Aleksandr L. recalls: “When I arrived, three mass graves were dug, and corpses were already in these graves. I had to fill in the graves with snow. There was one grave in the southwest, another at the east and the last one at the west. In these graves, the corpses lay every which way. Dressed. I recognized some people. A German supervised the requisitioned and told them “Arbeiten”, “arbeiten”. I had to fill in two graves”. (Eyewitness N°638, interviewed in Rodnya, on June 15, 2013.)
Rodnya is located 156 kilometers away from Mogilev. Jews began to live in the village in the 19th century. Most of the Jews worked in commerce and in agriculture. In 1938, there was a Jewish kolkhoz in Rodnya. According to some sources, there were between 30 and 60 Jewish families in Rodnya. There was a synagogue and a Jewish school. The German occupation began on August 10, 1941.
According to Aleksandr L. (Witness N°638), the Jews were shot during the winter of 1941-1942. Some inhabitants were requisitioned in order to dig three graves. The ground was frozen as well. The witness saw the shooting of a Jewish woman who was saying she would give them gold in order to be saved. The witness was requisitioned to fill the graves with snow. He saw the bodies that were still dressed in these graves, As stated in Soviet sources, the shooting took place on the night of December 10, 1941. 50 Jews were shot in the Jewish cemetery.
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