Murder Story of Feodosiya Jews on the Simferopol Road (Gas Vans)

- Tell us please where we are now. - This is a trench, the continuation of that trench. There is another kilometer to go. I helped my mother: each female resident of Feodosiya took part in digging this trench before the Germans came. - What happened here? - At this place? A shooting. - Who was shot? - Krymchaks. After them, maybe someone else. The trench was very long. I know that many bones were found, and children’s things. - So do I understand correctly that, although the Jews and the Krymchakis were shot in different places, all the bodies ended up in this trench? - Yes, it was very, very long. - Before the war there was in this location a farm that belonged to the city hospital. On December 12, 1941 a group of Feodosyian Krymchaki was brought here from the city jail. In the lists of the city hall 449 Krymachaks were registered. 9 of the families (a total of 42 people) were released from the transport as they had “professional value.” . The rest – 245, according to one source, and almost 300, according to another, were brought here by truck from the jail and shot here by Sonderkommando 10b of the German Nazi occupiers. The adults were shot, the children under 12 were killed by some poisonous powder put on their lips. Some sources say that the occupiers’ forces were assisted in the shooting by the local police. - The city police? - Yes. - How many people? - There were 20 people from the city police, and it was headed by Mr. Pushkarev. How many policemen assisted the Germans and how we don’t know. After December 12th they brought more people to be shot here: sometimes it was the Jews and Krymchaki who had been found hiding, then in January – February mixed families were shot (in December, they had been released) and everyone who was considered an enemy of “the new regime.” - Moisey Solomonovich, do you have relatives who were killed during the occupation here in Feodosiya? - Yes, not first cousins but second cousins… - Are their bodies buried here? - Yes. - Who were they? - 2 uncles, and they had… 4 children: one brother had 1 and the other -3. - Do you know why they shot Jews and Krymchaki on different dates but at the same place? - I think that the place was chosen for the convenience of the Sonderkommando: they preferred to have a building nearby - to store the things and to warm up. The operation took place over quite a long time. Near the trench there was no building at all. - And why different on dates? - We can’t know but can only guess. Maybe because the city jail was not big enough. Maybe there were not enough executioners. Maybe there were other operations [being carried out then]. Maybe they wanted to pace the Sonderkommando’s activities and give their people some rest. But all those are assumptions

Dear Izia, I received your letter of September 6, 1944 only the day before yesterday ….. First of all, I tried to find out whether your parents had succeeded in leaving the city [before the war] since, if they hadn't left the city, there was no longer any reason to ask further. More than 2,500 Jews of the city were murdered. Even the old Fidelev couple, for whom the [local] authorities tried to intercede, were found and thrown into a well. It is known that your parents remained in the city and [therefore] perished. I found this out from Sima Naydich and a local civilian named Keelson. . . I was also advised to ask the secretary of the [municipal] executive committee about this but he (Citizen M. Chulkov) answered that [at the committee] they don't have materials about the evacuation or the lists of those who were killed. It is not known why they [your parents] did not leave the city or what they were hoping for. ….

When the war broke out [in the Soviet Union], I was in Crimea, in Feodosiya city, working there with lots of fellows from Poland. When the frontline approached Perekop, the evacuation of people via the Black Sea from Feodosiya to the Caucasus began.… Some of my friends got away. My two brothers and I couldn't leave the city since [the authorities] wouldn't release us from our work.… Two days after the German army captured the city the Germans ordered all the Jews to appear at a designated point in the city. I foresaw the fate of those who would appear [at the collection point] since [before this] I had met by chance a Ukrainian acquaintance who told me what the German executioners were doing to the Ukrainian Jews who had obeyed these orders. Several days after [the mass murder] there were already reports that all the people [the Jews] had been killed. My brother and I didn't show up [at the collection point] but instead went into hiding for 7 weeks [sic] at the home of a Christian acquaintance. Fortunately for us … the Red Army captured the city [this was the first liberation, that lasted only from December 29, 1941 to January 17, 1942] and we were saved from the German executioners. But, some time afterwards… we were imprisoned by the NKVD, suspected of collaboration with and spying for the Germans. As we were told, the fact that all the Jews had been murdered while we had survived seemed very suspicious to them [the NKVD]….

-We'are now standing at the very place where the Feodosiya Jews were shot by the Nazis on December 4, 1941. - How did the shooting happen? - An order was issued. It said that the Jews should gather on December 1st to be resettled. They should bring the keys to their homes, food, and clothes. They were all to come to the Market Square. Then they were put in jail. People who were of mixed marriages were temporarily released. Some sources mention 120 people whose passports were stamped “temporarily released.” The rest – some 800 people or more, were brought here and shot on December 4th. People who witnessed these events say that adults and children above 12 were shot and children under 12 were poisoned. The poison is believed to have been prepared by a local doctor and his wife, as they were ordered to do so by the Nazis. But this information needs to be verified. Our city was liberated by the Red Army for two weeks at the end of December, and it was one of the first places where the Soviet military personnel witnessed the mass destruction of the Jewish population. During the liberation some important documents were found, a diary of First--Lieutenant Heize among them. In that diary there was a description of the December 4, 1941 shooting. As Heize writes, a group of Jews were taken from the jail. They were divided into groups of 10 people, had to undress, and descend into the trench (2.5 – 3 meters deep). Then 10 shooters who stood on the edge of the trench fired, following an officer’s order. After that the next group would go down, and everything started all over. The younger men were ordered to put the bodies in some kind of order, so after each shot they had to “tidy up” the pile of bodies. The procedure went on till everyone was dead. The last ones shot were the young men who had cleaned up the trench. This was a document that showed how one could “industrialize” mass death in such a pedantic way. Only someone with a German character could decide that the dead bodies of shot people should be put one on another in some precise order… - What was the name of this place then, and how is it called now? - It was the outskirts of Feodosiya, here was an anti-tank trench, and there was a small factory called “Mekhanik” – not even a factory but a small workshop that made plumbing equipment. - In what direction did the anti-tank trench go, do you know? - In that direction, toward the highway. I dug it myself. - What is this area called now? - This place is called Memorial Square.