Murder story of Samotevichi Jews at the Samotevichi Russian Orthodox Church

… When they were shooting we heard the shots but were afraid to move. People say that they also buried people alive, as well as those they had killed. Hands and feet stuck out. They covered them with earth. The son of our neighbor, a Russian lad by the name of Shtabnyi, married a Jewish girl. They had a small child. The neighbor’s son was at the front. They took away his wife and child. The old woman Shtabnaya ran after them, trying to rescue her daughter-in-law and grandson, but she did not succeed. When they announced that everyone had to undress and that they would be shot, the Jews began to run in various directions but all of them were caught and shot. One child fled wearing one boot. Aron tried to hide not far from where we lived, but he was shot, then taken and buried in the common grave. He was tall, with broad shoulders, and had fair hair but, for some reason, didn’t go to join the partisans. The partisans had invited him to join them. The partisan Zyama had a son Izrail and a daughter and wife. They all perished but I don’t know where. One of our women grabbed a girl, the daughter of her sister, who was married to a Jew, and tried to escape. They snatched the girl away from her, struck her, and broke her skull. They shot another girl. No longer alive, she fell onto her hands and knees and her dress was pulled over her head. Her Jewish mother ran to embrace her. She began to cry and scream. While on her knees, this woman was also shot....

... Ten days before the shooting of the Jews of the village of Samotevichi the police went from house to house and summoned all the young people to a meeting. They said that they would be given sweets. I had two brothers. Mamma forbade them to go to the meeting. My youngest brother listened and hid in a field. The younger of my brothers was dark haired, they had wanted to round him up as a Jew. That’s why he was already afraid of the Germans. My other brother hesitated and, then, ran off to the meeting. They spoke to the young people there and then locked them in the church and kept them there for ten days: the guards had machine guns. They didn’t allow their families to bring them food. When mother tried to bring them food, she was chased away with sticks. Then some of the youths were forced to dig a pit. All of the Jews [of the town] were shot [there]. After the massacre all the other youths were put into carts. In the first cart were the policeman Pavel, his father and mother, and his five children. All the carts headed to Kostyukovichi; from there people were deported by train to Germany....

... My mother died soon after the war. Then my father married a woman from our village. She told me a lot about the war, including how the Jews were killed. All our village was Jewish. The partisans hid several Jews in the forest. The names of the Jews who were killed were Aron and his brother Shleyma, Zhmeida, Altshuler, Mirka, and Gertsen. The Germans killed them: first the men, then the women, and finally they put the children on top and shot them. One girl crawled out but they shot her. They raised the skirt of one woman who had been shot. They acted vilely. They murdered the Jews right in the middle of the village. People say that during the shooting the head of the [German-appointed] Jewish council named Krinitsyn stood up and said [to the locals]: “They are starting with us but you will be next.” He was shot immediately. Efrosinya Karpovna Lobyntseva, who was married to Altshuler (who had been killed) hid their small son, who was born in 1939 or 1940. He was not killed and no one gave him away [to the Nazis]. After the war he studied in our class under the name of Altshuler....