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Murder Story of Kherson Jews in Zelenovka
Murder Site
Zelenovka
Ukraine (USSR)
On September 23, 1941 the Germans transferred Kherson's Jews, excluding converts to Christianity and the offspring of mixed families, from the ghetto to the local prison. Those unable to walk were beaten mercilessly and then shot. The Jews were held in the prison compound overnight. The next morning the Jews were told by the Germans that they were going to be resettled. The following day all the Jewish men, women, and children were taken in groups of 15 to 20 to anti-tank trenches located seven kilometers northeast of Kherson, on the grounds of an industrial settlement near the villages of Zelenovka and Rozhnovka, and then they were shot by machine-guns. Before they were shot, the Jews were ordered by the Germans to cover with earth the bodies of those who had been shot before them. At the murder site children age 2 to 14 were separated from their mothers, lined up, and given a poisonous substance to inhale. The mass murder was carried out by a unit of Sonderkommando 11a commanded by SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Eberhard Heinze. The estimate of the number of victims of this massacre varies from 5,000 (according to German sources) to over 8,700 (according to Soviet sources).
Related Resources
Written Testimonies
Written Accounts
German Reports / Romanian Reports
Soviet Reports
ChGK Soviet Reports
From a collection of essays by Kherson school children on the topic "What I experienced during the occupation," written in the fall of 1944:
... We rarely went out onto the street. But one day our attention was attracted by noise outside. The Jews were being driven along the street. They were carrying all their best possessions with them. They had been caught by surprise. They thought they would be living somewhere in an isolated area. However, they were surrounded by the police and, within several minutes, the Jews were taken away. When they saw that they were being taken to the prison, in desperation they began to throw down their packages and soon the whole road was covered with packages. Smiling, the Germans collected all this in carts and took it away. Then the looting of Jewish property started. The Germans, policemen, and some vile [towns]people carried off all they could get hold of from the Jewish neighborhood....
Boris Nepomnyashchiy, Jewish Kherson, Kherson, 2004, p. 296 (Russian).
From Fanya Moiseenko, "I was taken in by a local woman":
... Then in September 1941 all of us Jews in the ghetto were transferred to the city prison. After being moved from the ghetto to the city prison, the Jews began to be taken by truck in groups outside the city to be shot.... There my parents and my sister Anna, with her husband and 15-year-old daughter, were shot.
Together with my 6-month-old son, by chance, I managed to escape being shot since, for a short period of time, the Germans allowed Jewish women with children who had Russian husbands to leave the prison. I took advantage of this situation and succeeded in reaching Varvarovka village in the Nikolayev District on foot. Two weeks after their release the Jewish women who had Russian husbands were again rounded up at their homes by the German Gestapo and, then, taken to be shot....
Boris Zabarko, ed., Life and Death of an Epoch of the Holocaust, Kiev, 2007, vol. 2, p. 343 (in Russian).
From Lyudmila Burlaka, "They transfered me from one family to another...":
... In September 1941 we were arrested and forced into the ghetto.... Then all of us were taken to be shot. The column [of Jews] was guarded by Germans with sub-machine guns and dogs, while the inhabitants of the city of Kherson were standing by at the side of the road. My mother carried my litte brother in her arms and held me by the hand. Suddenly Mother pushed me into the crowd of bystanders. Shots rang out. I was wounded in the chest and in the foot.... Some people picked me up, took me away, and hid me. My mother and nine-month old brother were shot to death by the Germans (as I found out later). People hid me from the Germans the whole time....
Boris Zabarko, ed., Life and Death of an Epoch of the Holocaust, Kiev, 2006, vol. 1, p. 186 (in Russian)
Zelenovka
Murder Site
Ukraine (USSR)
46.634;32.615
Videos
Vanda Kriger was born in 1925 in Kherson and lived there during the war years
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 48313 copy YVA O.93 / 48313
Raisa Kuchurenko was born in 1930 in Kherson and lived there during the war years
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 46908 copy YVA O.93 / 46908
Lyudmila Burlaka was born in 1935 in Kherson and lived there during the war years
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 41121 copy YVA O.93 / 41121