According to some testimonies of former inmates of the Bratslav labor camp and to German documents, a group of Jews who tried to escape the camp, apparently in the second half of 1942 or in early 1943, were shot in a pit they were forced to dig, either right outside the camp or inside the camp itself.
Related Resources
Written Testimonies
German Reports / Romanian Reports
Julius Kronenfeld, who was born in 1910 and was an inmate of the Bratslav labor camp during the war years, testified:
…Around March 1943 8 people who had been deported [from Romanian territory] escaped from the camp. The escape was discovered during the morning roll call and the pursuit started immediately. The fugitives were caught on the outskirts of the locality [Bratslav?], brought to the camp, and shot at the camp's latrine on orders of former [camp] commander OT [Todt Organization] man Paul Reininger…
YVA O.3 / 1468
Leonid Nemirovskiy, who was born in 1930 and was an inmate of the Bratslav labor camp during the war years, testified:
…I remember another event. A group of 6 Jews from our camp bribed some policemen to let them out of the camp so they could escape to the town of Bershad, where there was a Jewish ghetto and they [the Jews] lived there unguarded. The policemen agreed to take the bribe and let them out of the camp.
One of the policemen was called Misha.
When the camp commander arrived in the morning and lined up all [the inmates] and 6 people were missing, he told the police unit on duty that he would shoot them, the policemen, and 60 Jews, 10 [people] for every fugitive.
The policemen (Ukrainians) knew where the escapees had fled to. They caught them and brought them [back] to the camp.
Those six people first dug a grave for themselves, on the spot, behind the barbed wire. Then they were forced to strip naked and this policeman, Misha, shot them.
I was one of the few witnesses of this event since the garage where I was working and the camp were close to each other. I saw and heard the entire [shooting] process and the words exchanged between the Jews and the policeman Misha. One of those who were being shot asked the policeman to shoot him again since he had [only] been shot in the arm. These words still resound in my ears.
Afterwards the grave was covered with earth…