Chertovo Related Communities
# Follow us
Languages
English
ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
RESEARCH & COLLECTIONS
COMMEMORATION
EDUCATION & E-LEARNING
MUSEUMS & EXHIBITIONS
RIGHTEOUS
Murder Story of Monastyrshchina Jews in Chertovo
Murder Site
Chertovo
Russia (USSR)
In February 1942 the ghetto inmates were taken in columns to a ditch in the area of Chertovo pole [field] near the Zheleznyak River. Different sources report various figures (from 760 to 1,200) for the number of victims, who were stripped naked despite the freezing weather, and then shot to death. Children from mixed marriages were also shot.
Related Resources
Written Testimonies
ChGK Soviet Reports
Abram Simkin "About the Events of 1941 - in 1942 in Monastyrshchina Village"
There were more than 1,200 people in the ghetto. Most of them were children, women, and old people. In February 1942 it was announced in the ghetto that all of them [the inmates] would have to relocate to another camp so they were ordered to take only valuables and food with them. The prisoners were lined up and taken to the bridge across the Zheleznyak River toward a large ditch. There everyone was forced to take off all their clothes despite the snowy and freezing weather. Those who resisted were severely beaten and then forced into the ditch and shot…. All the ghetto inhabitants were taken to the ditch in three columns and shot.
Yosef Tsynman " Bab'i Yary Smolenshchiny" [Babi Yar of the Smolensk District] (Smolensk, 2001), p. 228 (Russian)
Chertovo
Murder Site
Russia (USSR)
54.355;31.840