Murder Story of Ludza Jews in Pogulyanka

... Semyon Vladimirovich Suyer and Olga Semyononvna Grishkan, who lived at 18 Vokzalnaya Street, Ludza and who survived the shooting, testify that the mass shooting of the Jewish population was carried out by the Germans on August 17, 1941, when between 750 and 800 Jews were shot at the shooting range, in the area of the Cirma Lake, seven kilometers from Ludza. The arrested former vice commandant of the ghetto Pavel Aleksandrovich Kovalevski testifies that the mass shooting of the Jews was organized according to the command of the German occupying authorities. The preparation for the shooting was managed by ghetto commandant Viktor Ladusan, while the shooting at the execution site was implemented under the command of a German SD captain and Restynsh, head of the Ludza county police. The Jews were taken to the shooting site in a column of about 800 people, under reinforced police escort. The sick and the elderly were driven in trucks and carts. The former Ludza prison guard, Stanislav Donatovich Ritynsh, who was present at the execution site, testifies that the possessions of the Soviet citizens being shot were taken away, and that the Jews were shot in separate groups. While one group was being shot, the next one was undressed and all their possessions seized. These preparations took place some fifty kilometers from the killing site. An SD group brought in especially for the shooting used two heavy machine-guns and two Russian-type manual machine-guns. The policemen and the Aizsargis stood behind the machine-gunners’ backs and shot the victims with rifles and machine-guns. Yanis Turkis, a policeman, shot from a rifle, and aizsarg Vladislav Ostrovsky used a machine-gun. Prison head Kuprovsky and prison guard Shkirmant shot those Soviet citizens who had survived the machine-gun fire. Flarian Antonovich Michulis, who lives in the hamlet of Silamaja, 300 meters from the place of the execution, being questioned as a witness, confirmed that, indeed, in the middle of August 1941, the mass shooting of the Ludza Jewish population was carried out at the shooting range, next to the Cirma Lake in the Zvirgzdene District. From the window of his house he personally saw hundreds of Jews herded by truck and cart, as well as on foot, being escorted to the execution site, undressed in the bushes, and then driven to the shooting range towards the grave that the Soviet prisoners of war had been forced to prepare. Gunfire was heard from the site. The murder site was guarded by the police and the Aizsargis, who did not allow anyone to approach the shooting range. Elena Petrovna Razanova, who lives at 48 Talavijas Street, Ludza, testifies that early in the morning she saw the Jews driven to the execution site, and that evening drunk policemen returned to Ludza by truck, singing songs. The trucks were loaded with the possessions and clothing of the victims, including children’s prams. Having carried out the mass murder of the Jewish population, the Germans left some forty young Jewish women, who worked at the military hospital, in the ghetto, as well as twenty-five Jewish “professionals.” However, about two weeks after the mass murder, the Germans decided to leave only the Jewish “professionals” alive and to annihilate the rest. The shooting was perpetrated on August 27, 1941 at the same location – next to the Cirma Lake. The night before the shooting, according to the witness of the former vice commandant of the ghetto Pavel Aleksandrovich Kovalevsky, the ghetto commandant Viktor Ladusan and an aide-de-camp of the Ludza German commandant, whose last name was not identified, brought the youngest Jewish women to the commandant’s office, undressed them, raped them and afterwards beat them with electric cords. Kovalevsky brought the young Jewish women to be raped and tortured by the Germans according to the list given to him by Ladusan. Rekstynsh, the head of the Ludza county police, arrived the following morning and ordered all the Jews to assemble, leaving only the professionals in the ghetto. The forty selected Jews, most of them young women with a few men and children, were undressed in the commandant’s office, put on a truck, transported to the Cirma Lake, and shot ....