Murder story of Esmony Jews in the Esmony Area

... I remember that as soon as the Jews were taken to be shot (everyone knew where they were being taken), our villagers rushed into the empty houses and started to take home their property: pillows, featherbeds, clothes, crockery, everything that could be taken away, they didn't stop at anything. One ill woman who could not stand up was shot right in her bed, then people carried away her feather quilt and pillow that were shot through with bullet holes. The woman killed in her house and a young, very handsome boy named Tomchin, who was ill with tuberculosis and was also shot in his house, were buried afterwards somewhere close by....

... Where the second shooting took place there is now a monument; before that there had been a kolkhoz potato cellar there, but it had been destroyed by a shell. It happened sometime at the end of July. Not all of the Jews were taken then, but there was some kind of selection: several families from every street. They began to be assembled early in the morning, at about 8 a.m. We were still sleeping and did not hear anything. We were awakened by the cries. They did not enter out house but took away our Jewish neighbors. Apparently the Germans knew where to find them. All [the Jews] were collected in the kolkhoz yard and kept there for a long time. They started to shoot them at about noon. The shooting was carried out by Germans who had arrived in cars from Belynichi. The Livshits family was also shot. My uncle was taken away together with the Jews. My uncle, Semyon Yasyukevich, was the head of the kolkhoz in Esmony. He was asked how he was living with the Jews. When he answered "well," he was taken away too....