Murder Story of Dunayevtsy Jews at the Demyankovtsy Mine

The bloody date of May 8, 1942, when the civilian population of the town, accompanied by the shouting of drunken gendarmes and policemen, was taken to the area of the former machine-tractor station, where one of those monstrous massacres that only brutal cannibals are capable of was perpetrated, can [never] been forgotten. With complete cynicism a selection was carried out between the able bodied and those unable to work. On May 8 all the male population was taken away by horse [-drawn wagons], children were torn away from their parents and, also the opposite, healthy parents [torn away] from their little children despite the latters' desire not to be separated. … After the misfortunates had been photographed, the crowd of those doomed people was taken to the abandoned mine near Demyankovtsy village and there the Jews, after having been forced to strip naked, were buried alive in the mine! Many lost their minds before arriving at the mine; those who tried to escape were shot on the spot. On that day, over 3,500 civilians [of Dunayevsty] were brutall murdered. The shouting of those unfortunate ones were heard from far away…. The next morning, May 9, 1942, a special commission surveyed the houses and marked with black circles the walls of the houses where no one remained; the remaining [Jews] were made to take out the belongings from these black-circled houses. Whole streets were marked with black circles. Where only recently familiar voices had been heard there was only a hollow silence in the apartments that had been ransacked; on the stoves there remained food that had not been completely cooked…. In many houses there were puddles of blood where sick people who couldn’t make their way to the square [the collection point] or those who had tried to hide in simple places of shelter in their homes were shot to death. On May 9 rain was pouring all day long and the torrents of water on the roads and sidewalks were red with the blood of the shooting victims of May 8. All the [victims'] belongings were taken from their homes to the movie house. Almost all their belongings, from pillows to kitchen utensils, were taken…..

…. On May 25, 1942, early, about dawn, we heard terrible noises from the street. The Jews were being taken - the elderly people in their underwear, the young women with little children in their arms. My parents and I, along with some neighbors, were hiding in the attic. After some time it became quiet. We came down from the attic to the house and found an old woman who had tried to hide in her bed shot to death. She was a neighbor from downstairs. She had been brutally murdered: her blood and parts of her brain were spattered onto the wall. On this terrible day 2,500 Jews were taken to the former phosphorous mine and the entrance to the mine was blown up: the people [trapped there] suffered and, gradually, died. At that time all my relatives – my mother's three sisters with their children, my father's sister with her husband and children, and my grandmother perished – [a total of] 20 of my dear relatives were brutally murdered on that terrible day. On the following day the remaining Jews, including me, my parents, and my brother, were driven out to the street and all made to enter the apartments of those who had been murdered and to take their possessions to the big movie hall. Our hearts were broken by what we saw. On the floor were lying the bodies of those who had tried to hide in their homes. After that, we were taken to the ghetto, ….