Murder Story of Krugloye Jews in Shupeni

And then on September 15 [1941] Pevzner [ the Jewish community head appointed by the Germans] was told that by 12 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I do not remember, all the men with shovels and digging bars have to show up at the commendatory office, all of them, aged 15 to 60. Some of them came. I did not go, Not all of them did, 5-10 people did not show up. They [the Germans] had the list. They asked Pevzner why they did not come. He said: "I do not know. I told everybody." He was shot immediately. Buses had already been brought and the punitive unit had been waiting. All of them [the Jewish men] were put on the bus and taken to such a pine forest –"Pyataya Godovina". The trench had already been prepared there. All of them were shot there. I do not know who prepared it [the trench]….They took about 60 men, only from Krugloye, two buses were full with them. No, they were more. Pevzner had made the list, there were about 100 men, may be more.

... Someday in the early October 1941 the strong Jewish men were collected together on the pretext to be taken to work. The were driven to the forest 4 kilometers from Krugloye along the road to Mogilev, to the right from the road not far from Shupeni village and there they were shot. Before the war there used to be hamlets there, and then they were destroyed. There remained pits from the houses and the basements, the pits were ready. First 20 people were taken and shot, and then there was one more time when the transportation of the men was organized. ..

….It was like the beginning, like the [first] encounter with the Germans. The following day after the Fascist fiends came 45 the youngest and the strongest men were selected among the Jews. To distract their attention they were ordered to take axes and shovels and some cords as if they were going to work for several days. At this very time a punitive unit of the Fascists fiends awaited for those young workers, who were going to work, behind the village, half way before Shupeni village. One of those young people, Meer Mendelev Pevzner, a local born tailor worker, was appointed the head of the team heading to work. When the whole team reached the square with the church, which was not far from the ghetto, the team [sic] was suspiciously forced to hurry up, shouts to the Kikes and so on. Besides, the workers considered their convoy humans and not beasts. Then this Meer Pevzner stayed behind and began asking his convoy where the team was going to. As the response a Fascist form the convoy team shot him to death. He ordered the son of this Meer Pevzner, I do not know his name, to dig a pit here in the vegetable garden. The team surrounded by dogs remained there until the shot one was buried. After that it was taken in the direction of Shupeni village where 3 kilometers away from the place where used to be a hamlet there was an abandoned cellar. There the German punitive unit met them. All the 45 people were shot to death there, close to the cellar. When shot they fell into the cellar their heads down and their legs after it. This way, as it will be mentioned below, they were exhumed and their remains were buried at the Jewish cemetery in Krugloye village….Long time after that the wives and the children of the shot people did not know what had happened to their husbands, fathers and sons.