1 Execution site(s)
Aleksandr L.: “When I arrived, three mass graves had already been dug and were full of bodies. I had to fill them in with snow. There was one grave to the southwest, another to the east and the last one to the west. The bodies were piled up randomly in the graves, fully dressed. I recognized some of the people. A German supervised the requisitioned locals and shouted “Arbeiten, arbeiten!” at them. I had to fill in two graves.” (Eyewitness N°638, interviewed in Rodnya, on June 15, 2013.)
Rodnya is located 156 km from Mogilev. Jews began to live in the village in the 19th century. Most of them worked in commerce and agriculture. In 1938, there was a Jewish kolkhoz in Rodnya. According to some sources, there were between 30 and 60 Jewish families in the village, who were rovided with 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, despite the fact that the ground was frozen. The witness saw the shooting of a Jewish woman who offered to give up her gold in order to be saved. The witness was requisitioned to fill the graves with snow. He saw the fully-dressed bodies 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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