Murder story of Sapezhinka Jews at the Sapezhinka Explosives Depot

... On August 28, 1941 all the men, there were 27 of them, were collected and shot near an explosives depot. When they wanted to rebury them after the war, they began excavations. When they found the prosthesis of one-legged Shmuel, they guessed who was buried there. A 95-year old peasant woman showed me the murder site. They had collected all the Jewish women, infirm old people, and children in the … house that belonged to Gamshei Uzilevskiy and in the house of Nachman Brilon. They were kept there for a whole week without food. They were raped, beaten, and humiliated. Then they were taken by force to the castle at Bykhov and then shot, together with the Jews of Bykhov. A witness of all these atrocities is still alive and he told me how the local policeman Vaska beat the young Jewish woman Golda and shouted at her: “Golda, hand over the gold!” Golda screamed: “Vaska, where would I get gold? You have know me since we studied together in the same class.” I received a letter from Saratov from an eye-witness of the shooting of the men of Sapezhinka. He saw how the blacksmith Sender Uzilevskiy perished. On that horrible morning the blacksmith went … to collect coal. Sender saw how they were leading a convoy of men to be shot and he [Uzilevskiy] ran to a thicket of nestles to hide. But one of the local men who hoped to receive a “treasure” for a reward gave him away, saying: “The ‘Jude’ is trying to escape over there.” That’s how they shot Uzilevskiy...

... On August 28, 1941 27 Jewish men from Sapezhinka who had not been conscripted into the army were shot at the edge of town near an explosives depot. On the day that these Jews were shot Izrail Mendel and a Belarusian named Mandrik were sent by the Germans with a cart to collect wood for fuel. When they returned, someone warned them that an order had been given to shoot Jewish men. Therefore, they turned toward the Dniepr and Izrail hid in some thick bushes. There, where the bend of the river was overgrown with vegetation, one could hide for a long time. Mendel’s daughter brought him food almost every day. However, a former [Soviet] police lieutenant named Blokh and his Polish wife, who lived in the area, saw the girl and reported to the Germans where the refugee was hiding. Izrail was executed. After liberation [of the region] Ivan Blokh was conscripted into the [Red] Army. He commanded a platoon and was killed during the war. On that same day all the Jewish women, old people, and children, totaling between 55 and 70, were collected in a large house … in two large sheds belonging to old Nachman Brilon and Gamshei Uzilevskiy. There the fascists held them for a whole week without food and water, raping, beating, and humiliating them. Then they forced them into the ghetto of Bykhov, after which they were shot, together with the Jews of Bykhov.... Pelageya Romanovna Stashkevich lived on our street. Before the war she worked on a farm, together with a mother and daughter with the last name of Brilon. The mother was a milkmaid – the daughter, Khena Brilon, managed the farm. Khena’s husband Chaim had already been shot. When they began to take the Jews away, Pelageya hid her neighbor and friend and her baby in the cellar. At that time a terrible order to shoot anyone who helped a Jew hide was already in force. Pelageya had three small children – the older ones were four and six years old, while the youngest was born in 1940. In the winter someone told the police that Stashkevich was hiding Jews. The Germans came. They dragged Khena and her daughter out of the cellar and took them away to be shot. They lined up Pelageya and her children against the wall to shoot them. They were saved only by the intervention of the village elder. The Germans didn’t take their things. The Jews were robbed by their own neighbors, people from Sapezhinka and Bykhov…, who carried away absolutely everything…