Murder Story of Mayfeld Jews at the Mayfeld Vineyard

- They gathered everyone at the school. The excuse was that they would be taken to Kherson. But, of course, they didn’t take them anywhere but to the anti-tank ditch. Our troops dug that ditch in October 1941 to stop the Germans. We were all sent to dig trenches, there were even pamphlets: “Don’t dig too hard; our stones will fill your trenches”. That’s how it was. So they were gathered at school. - Were there only people from your village, or also from the other villages? - Also from the others, from the Kolaisky district. So they took everyone: children and adults. Some, like Grisha Kostenko…helped them. - Who was he? - He was a driver. We welcomed many people to our collective farm. We were a well known collective farm who even went to the exhibition in Moscow in 1939. So we accepted many Jewish families. - So how did Kostenko help? - He was a farm driver, so he helped to drive the people. It is written here: “If the local population here doesn’t collaborate, the Nazis won’t dare commit such horrible crimes”. You see, the Jews – young and old – were locked in the school for three days, and no one helped them. After three days, a death squad arrived from Dzhinkoy and shot them. 1700 people.