Murder Story of Mikhaylovka Jews at the Mulberry Plantation of the Vostochnyi Collective Farm

... In November 1941 Sonderkommando SS 20 arrived at Mikhaylovka rural council, … SS criminals started to arrest the Jews in Mikhaylovka village, both local and ones who had evacuated there. Altogether there 47 [Jewish] civilians were arrested. Among them there were old people, women, and minors. The Jews were put into an empty house and were abused. They were forced to pull carts with water for the Germans, clean lavatories, and polish the Germans’ boots. Five days later the Germans brought trucks to the house and forced the Jews to get onto the trucks. The Jews were taken to a mulberry tree plantation that was located 800 meters from Mikhaylovka village. They began shooting the Jews; the, young children were thrown alive into the trench....

... In the month of October 1941 SS Sonderkommando 20 arrived in the village of Mikhaylovka. In November 1941 the SS Sonderkommando began to arrest Jews and Gypsies. The remaining Jews were crowded into one building by a reinforced group of guards. Then they were loaded onto German cars [trucks]. In the middle of November 1941, late in the afternoon, I was on my way from work …when 50 meters ahead of me I saw a passenger car with three German officers. A canvas-covered truck followed the car. The car arived at the end of Mikhaylovka and turned into the mulberry plantation of the Vostochny kolkhoz. When the vehicles reached their destination, the Sonderkommando began to unload the [the Jews from the] truck by force. I was within 400-500 meters of the truck, where I could see well women with babies and young children getting out of the trucks. There were about 35-40 of them. Then all of them were lined up next to the trench. One woman with a baby dropped him on the ground. An officer did not let her pick him up but put her back in line and took the baby and threw him into the trench.... Before I reached my house I heard sub machine-gun and gun shots and the screaming and crying of children and women coming from the place where the women with the babies and children were lined up. After some minutes I saw two more canvas-covered trucks heading to the same place where those women and children were being shot. I also heard sub-machine gun and gun shots from that place. After this the German soldiers from SS Sonderkommando 20 got into cars [and trucks] and returned to the village of Mikhaylovka singing....