![Varvara S., born in 1928: ”Prior to the execution, the Jews were gathered at the school playground. I remember Rosa and Bella, with whom I used to play, [was] among them.” ©Jordi Lagoutte /Yahad-In Unum](/thumb/cache/2239f26349aef4310e9588c95da54fc9/79727/media_fichier_YIU_RU23_J11_ROSTOV_Ekaterinovka_T865_17-11-2018-6.jpg)
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1 Killing site(s)
Varvara S., born in 1928 : ”Prior to the execution, the Jews were gathered at the school playground. I remember the girls Rosa and Bella, with [whom] I used to play. They were taken to the school along with their parents. They were taken in the direction of Salk, to the fields that used to belong to a kolkhoz [collective farm] called “Krasnaya Dolina”. Even though there were already silo pits there, the Germans requisitioned local people to dig new pits. Or maybe, they just deepened those that already existed, I can’t tell you this for sure. I didn’t see the shooting, but I could hear the gunshots. They were isolated gunshots. Someone told me that there was a boy who attempted to escape but he was shot dead on the spot with two bullets.” (Witness n° 865R, interviewed in Yekaterinovka, on November 17, 2018)
”In August 1942 in the village of Yekaterinovka of the Yekaterinovskiy selsoviet, the Salsk district, region of Rostov, under the Gestapo’s order the German fascists invaders savagely killed 12 innocent people:
Yusim Isac, 57 years old
Yusim Anna, 55 years old
Yusim Sarah, 20 years old
Yusiam Chaya, 72 years old
Schwartzman Hanna, 54 years old
Schwartzman Ziam, 6 years old
Rabinovich Nikolay, 73 years old
Rabinovich Sonia, 71 years old
Furer Reiza, 45 years old
Molomut Bella, 20 years old
Sishko Ivan Yossipovich, 40 years old.”[Act n°4 drawn up by Soviet State Extraordinary Commission on October 4, 1943; GARF 7021-40-777, p. 115]
Yekaterinovka is a village located 190 km (74mi) south east of Rostov-on Don, on the border with Ukraine. It was founded in 1806 as a hamlet. In the 1850s, it was renamed the Leonov hamlet. During the next years, the name changed several times until the land was inherited by the younger daughter of captain Leonov, Yekaterina, and the hamlet was named after her. In 1870, the hamlet Yekaterinovka was granted the status of the chief district. At the end of the 19th century, about 1,500 people lived there, most of them were Russians or Ukrainians. The main occupation was agriculture, and different kinds of crops were cultivated here.
Yekaterinovka was occupied in the summer of 1942. Before the German arrival, many Jewish and non-Jewish refugees passed by the village. Some of them settled in the village while others continued their way to the southeast. According to the Soviet archives, 12 Jews were executed near the village of Yekaterinovka. Thanks to the field investigation, Yahad managed to find out some details about the execution process. Beforehand, the Jews were rounded-up at the school playground under a pretext of the future resettlement. According to one witness interviewed by Yahad, they thought they were going home. They were told to leave all their belongings, clothing, and valuables in a pile in the yard. The local non-Jewish population was forced to go to the gathering point and take the remaining clothes. If they refused to do so, they were threatened with weapons. After that, the Jews were loaded on carts and taken to the execution site. The column was escorted by four Germans. Once on the site, the Jews were shot in groups of twos at the edge of the silo pit.
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