Murder story of Ozarichi Jews in the Khomyachi Forest

... I returned to Ozarichi only in 1950. When I returned, my neighbor the peasant Ivan Tarasyuk told me about the death of my relative's family - the family of my father's uncle. His father suggested that my uncle leave with them but Girsh kept saying, "Where shall I go? Here in 1918 I danced the krakowiak with the Germans, they won't do me any harm." They lived in a large house that was later burned down: my father's Uncle Girsh with his wife Sorah, their son Chaim with his wife and their two children, their daughter with her two children (she came [with her children]for the summer from Kharkov). There were three more women refugees from Western Belarus or Lithuania. Uncle Girsh Portnoy was a very good shoemaker…. Girsh madeboots for a policeman. The policeman asked how much he should pay. Girsh asked him to bury their bones after they were killed. As a very good shoemaker, Girsh was left alive longer than anyone else. The whole family was murdered all together when the others had been already murdered. They were shot and buried separately. As soon as I returned, I had a monument erected on their grave and fenced it in. I did not make a plaque. I was told that if people saw that it was a Jewish grave they would destroy it. The village residents do not know whose grave it is, only Tarasyuk's children and grandchildren know who is buried here....