Murder Story of Lepel Jews in Chernoruchye

... In February 1942 all the Jews of Lepel were collected and taken by truck to the village of Chernoruchye (5-6 kilometers from Lepel) and were shot to death there. There was a ghetto: it was next to the lake, beyond Dzerzhinskaya (formerly Svinskaya) Street. Russians and Gypsies were also shot to death at that location. When the shootings were taking place, no one was allowed close enough to see….

On the morning of February 28, 1943, which was very cold, in dead silence gendarmes with dogs began to rush around the streets, setting up positions with German soldiers and traitors [local collaborators]. When they woke up, seeing armed German soldiers, officers, and local policemen patrolling the streets,the people of the town were afraid to leave their homes. At 8 a.m. trucks with fascists with the letters SS sewn onto their sleeves appeared on Volodarskaya Street. The trucks stopped. The first one halted at the corner house, No. 104, of Volodarskaya and Vokzalnaya Streets. The traitors dashed into the apartments and, using their feet and the buts of their guns, pushed everyone out of their homes. On the street the SS men grabbed people and put them onto the trucks. There was a huge noise, with the crying of children and women. A shot rang out and then rounds were fired from machine guns and automatic weapons. People began to run in all directions, realizing that this was the last minute of their lives in their native land, in their hometown. The gendarmes and the policemen shot down on the spot those who were trying to escape and threw their bodies into the trucks. That is how the bloody violence (the Hitlerite terror) against the Jewish population began. Those thrown onto the trucks [alive] were guarded by 10 armed local militiamen and policemen. The trucks moved along Volodarskya, Leninskaya, and Gorky Streets to the southwest outskirts of the city. While the trucks were moving, one could hear these shouts: "bandits, hangmen, fascists" and "the fighters of the Red Army will take revenge for our blood." Seven kilometers from Lepel, in the village of Chernoruchye, small pits had been prepared, dug out beforehand by the fascists. SS men were standing at these pits. They stripped naked all those who had been taken there (while still alive) and threw them into the pit, shooting them dead from machine guns and automatic weapons. They stabbed the small children with knives or smashed them against the wheels [of the trucks] and threw them into the pit. My family - my daughter, mother, brothers, and sisters were killed. Afterwards, when I left to join the partisans as a member of the Chekist Brigade, I fought against the fascists. I took part in 12 battles.