Murder Story of Berdichev Jews in Shlemarka

The most dreadful day in my life – September 15, 1941 – came ever closer .... All this began at 3 am, in the night. Policemen rushed into our home. But instead of beating or pillaging, like they usually did every night, the policemen began to drive us out of the house. They hit us with butts, did not let us dress, yelled. We ran out from the house and saw that the whole street was full of people. Using butts, ramrods and sticks, the policemen tried to form the people in a column. They succeeded poorly, because among the crowd, there were many infirm old people who could barely walk, and many cripples who could not walk at all. We found it difficult to comprehend what was going on. We moved quite automatically together with the throng of thousands, instinctively protecting ourselves from blows with a stick or a butt. Thus, accompanied by yells, swearing and gunshots, we were driven to the market square. By this time, there were many people there. ... Germans in helmets, armed to the teeth, ran about through the crowd, snatched people, and pushed some of them to the left, the others to the right. My father I and found ourselves in one throng, mother and Firochka – in another. ... When we came to ourselves, we could see that we were standing in a relatively small group of Jews, mainly middle-age men. We were surrounded by policemen and, several meters from us, a human stream, prodded with butt blows, moved to cars. The infirm were thrown into the cars like sacks; the cars departed, and new cars came to be loaded. This continued until the evening.

The people realized what was awaiting them halfway to the airfield, because, despite the roaring of plane engines, disordered shooting could be heard. The column began to compress – in fact, its first rows stopped – but the guards prodded the hapless people with their bayonets. The closer we came to Shlemorki [sic], the loader were the screams in the column. ... Not far away from the execution site, there were big transport planes. The planes stood still, and their engines worked to drown the noise of the shooting and victims’ screams and moans. With the same purpose, several three-plane flights barraged over the airfield. ... When we arrived at the shooting site, I suddenly saw that I was in the middle of a crowd of mainly old people and women with babies and small children. We were driven into an area of about 800-1,000 square meters encircled with barbed wire, which strangely resembled a dressing room of a bathroom. ... All were ordered to undress completely, while laying pieces of clothing and valuables down carefully. ... The women – up to the last! – refused to undress. The Germans began to beat them brutally with sticks, then with rifle butts and bayonets. Those who were especially recalcitrant were shot on the spot. ... The exit from the “dressing room” was a narrow corridor, through which people could walk out only in single file to the place from where machine-gun bursts could be heard. ... A ditch, to which the hangmen forced people to go! The ditch was only forty to fifty meters away. They led groups of eight to ten people to it, shot them and pushed them inside. Those who attempted to resist where thrown into the pit alive, with a shot in their direction. Crazed women tried to shield their children with their bodies and fell into the ditch with their children alive in their arms ....