Murder Story of Nagartava Jews at the Hospital in Nagatar

… Then the massacre of the Jewish population started. The SS cannibals took all the Jewish people behind the hospital and shot all of them in a ravine. Our Sonya died praising Soviet rule, comrade Stalin, and the valiant Red Army, [she died] together with her children, who were shot before her eyes. She did not beg for mercy, but prophesized that the time would come when the fascist monsters would get their just deserts at the avenging hand of justice. Sofia Ruvinovna was shot 11 times. Many others were thrown into the ravine alive. [Her] former pupil, who at the time was pregnant, embraced her, saying: "I want to die with you, Sofia Ruvinovna." The earth heaved for a very long time and moaning was heard. The SS cannibals did not want this moaning to be heard so they ordered more earth to be piled on and trucks to be driven over the place until it became flat as a road….

… The "peaceful" life of Nagartav inhabitants continued until September 13 [1941]. On that day they were assembled - to be shot. They gathered all the inhabitants of Nagartav, about one thousand people, in the building of the former people's house, which held 400 people. Everyone was there- the elderly, children, women, and adult males. Since they had been told that all the Jews would be sent to Palestine, everyone appeared for the registration. The registration of the doomed was carried out by a teacher from the Ukrainian school who was a local resident and, therefore, knew all the Jews. When one boy came for registration, she asked him in Ukrainian: "But where is your brother?" On September 14 they started to take [the Jews] to be shot in different parts of the colony. The Germans selected two ravines as murder sites: one of them was behind the hospital…. On September 14 900 people were shot and on the following days about one hundred more. Overall, about the half of the colony's residents were murdered. Among those murdered after September 14 were [Soviet] soldiers who had broken out of the [German] encirclement and, by a miracle, reached home. Isaak Aronovich Mutsmakher arrived in the colony and headed for the administration building. He was arrested there by the village elder. Then he was taken by policemen to the ravine behind the hospital and shot by them there....

It was on September 14, 1941. At 3 o'clock in the morning in Sunday they were taken outside and were forced to the Nagartaav club. At 7 o'clock the shooting started, and at 10 o'clock the bandits finished their work. According to the incomplete data 867 Nagartav residents perished. Only two SS unit members carried out the shooting while the rest were Russians, the Motherland betrayers, 10 people in number. The people were shot naked, all of them together, old people, women, children. There are two pits next to the hospital, and two pits next to the house where or Shmulik used to live, which means in the natural ravines. But this was not all. A seven year old boy, Itsik Grinberg managed to escape, then ran to Visun' [village nearby], to the house of Osadchiy family. He asked them for water. The Osadchiys, the husband and the wife , were at home. Having given the child the water to drink and the two of them took him by the hands and brought him back where he was shot.