Murder Story of Borisov Jews at the Borisov Airfield

It began thus: At 6 AM on October 20, everyone in the ghetto was rounded up by policemen. Since I lived in the center of the ghetto, I heard the shouts and the cries of children from the outskirts of the ghetto. One could hear the heartrending cries of the people who were being thrown into trucks, to be transported as objects to the shooting site. That same day, October 20, at 4 PM, my mother, father, and other relatives were seized and loaded onto a truck. I heard the moaning and shouting of mothers begging for help. It is hard to describe what I went through, knowing that my turn was coming.… The shooting went on for three days. The Germans kept this mass murder as secret as possible. Thus, they forbade people to walk in nearby streets…. All through the day, from 6 AM to 6 PM, trucks loaded with people left, and then returned, loaded with the possessions of those who had been shot…. When we descended from the attic, we were forced to join a group of about fifty people, who had hidden in several places. We were then led along the street to the shooting site. There were forty policemen, armed to the teeth, guarding the fifty of us. The sick people, those unable to walk, were shot on the spot.… Finally, we arrived at the site. It was two-three kilometers from Borisov, in the area of Razuvaevka, near the airport. The earth had recently been dug up, and you could see people's heads, covered with soil. As soon as we arrived at the site, our outer garments were taken off; we were examined, and all our documents and photographs were torn into shreds. We were all given shovels and ordered to dig pits for ourselves. A policeman stood next to each Jew, forcing them to work faster. Whenever someone stopped, even for a short break, they would be beaten on the back with a stick. I lagged behind in my work, since I was also digging a pit for my younger brother. I received a hail of blows and slaps in the face. There were Germans with cameras standing not far from me, and they would burst into laughter every time I was beaten. When all the pits had been dug, we were forced to stand next to them, facing them. Thus, we were apparently going to be shot in the back. When I was leaving, I heard the sounds of submachine-gun fire – this is what the Germans did to innocent civilians. More than 10,000 people were shot in the course of those three days.