Murder Story of Mikhailovka Jews at Hill 104.1

… In March 1942, at the time of the German occupation of Mikhaylovka village, 128 wards of the orphanage, 10 of them Jews and the rest Ukrainians and Russians, age 2.5-16 were brutally tortured to death and shot. ... The children were told that they were going to be moved to a nursing home in the Vladimirovka rural council. Guarded by 3 Germans and 15 policemen from Tomakovka County, the 128 children were taken, the ill and the young ones by cart and the older and healthy ones on foot, toward the nursing home. All the children were shot outside of Mikhaylovka village, at hill 104.1, 1.5 kilometers northeast of Mikhaylovka. The policemen grabbed the children by their arms and legs and threw them into an anti-tank ditch, while the Germans shot them from sub-machine guns. Commandant of the Tomakovka garrison, Kaiser, took part in the shooting of the children. After the shooting the grave was lightly covered with earth by the policemen and, the next day, the grave, which measured 6 x 3 square meters and about 2 meters deep, was covered with earth by local inhabitants on orders of the commandant.. On January 7, 1944 exhumation of the site where 128 children from the orphanage were brutally tortured to death revealed children's bodies haphazardly scattered in the grave. The bodies had traces of physical violence, such as broken bones and split skulls. In the same grave cups, spoons, children's toys, and needlework were discovered, along with the children's bodies....

... In 1942, in March, children from the orphanage were shot. As far as I know, a total of 129 people were shot. Their bodies were discovered behind the cemetery near Mikhaylovka village in an anti-tank ditch. I heard policemen say that during the shooting children were buried alive….

... At the end of 1941 [sic], I do not remember in which month, I worked at the Mikhailovka orphanage as a cleaning woman and I saw with my own eyes how the German commandant Kaiser and the policemen Savva Bulanyi, Ivan Yaremenko, and others, came to the orphanage [and] announced that the children were being moved to a nursing home. They ordered them to be prepared for the move. The next day the same persons came to the orphanage, loaded the children onto trucks, and took them away. I later learned that they shot all of the 128 children. The news of this [murder] spread throughout the entire village of Mikhaylovka. A Jewish inhabitant of Tomakovka village, Mikhail Osipovich Vinokur, and two young women of Jewish origin, Polina and Ida Koshevitskaya, were shot together with the children....

...In March 1942, I do not know the exact date, the German commandant, whose name I do not know, and several policemen arrived at the orphanage. They arrived in three carts. The commandant ordered us, the staff, and the orphanage director Stepan Avramenko, to prepare the children to be moved to the nursing home. The commandant and the policemen were armed. We dressed the children and the policemen put them on the carts, shouting "Hurry up!" There were also 3-4 elderly Jewish women and 3-4 men in the orphanage. They were taken to an unknown destination together with the children. The older children were taken in a column. About 2 kilometers from the orphanage all the children and adults who had been taken were shot and thrown into a ravine…. Together with them, a Jewish resident of Tomakovka Mikhail Osipovich Vinokur and the sisters Polina and Ida Koshevitskaya were shot….