Szumsk - Commemoration of Jewish Victims

[Upon returning to the town shortly after the war] I wanted to see the burial site of the three thousand Jews who had been killed during the murder operation, who had been taken [to the murder site located] not far from the town, in a big field within a very broad area. I succeeded in finding the site, but it was not possible to see whether either the valley of the murder or the quite large mass-grave was located there. Everything was covered with weeds, and cattle were grazing along its breadth and length as if there [at this murder site] the earth had never covered so many people.… I turned to him [a local acquaintance] in regard to having the [murder] site fenced off so that, at least, sheep and goats and cattle would not trample those holy graves. Though he [Ruth's acquaintance] promised me that he would talk with the town's mayor and his deputy so that they might find some money and deal with this mass-grave, the matter [problem] remained. I left it [the issue] that way, with a very encouraging promise [on the part of the authorities] that they would do the only moral thing, the thing that one would expect.… [However, recently, when a delegation [of ex-Szumsk Jews living in] Israel visited Szumsk, they did not find anything. They promised me to have a fence set up. When I asked them whether there was a fence there or whether there had ever been one, they replied: "Perhaps there was once a fence there, but we didn't find any fence." According to people who have been there, …at this site,… it was even difficult to know [whether indeed the mass grave was located at this site]. It would only have been possible [to find the mass grave] by digging and finding the bones [of the victims], but they certainly did not do so [at that time]. [Nevertheless], according to people who had been there, they [instinctively] knew that this was the site where a very large mass grave was located…, where at least 3,000 people were buried in this mass grave….