Murder story of Vakhnovka Jews in the Turbov Forest

…The commission carried out an examination of the graves of Soviet civilians who were brutally murdered during the occupation by the German-Fascist occupiers. The graves were discovered in several places, including… fields of Vakhnovka village near the forest… Most of the graves are of the same size-4.2-4.5 meters long, 2.2-2.5 meters wide…All of the graves are 2-2.5 meters deep… The bodies are buried 1.2-1.5 meters deep. They are lying in the graves in two rows -- some facedown, some on their side; some of the bodies (the female ones) are lying on their side, embracing their small children up to one year old. All of the bodies are naked… The corpses, that date to 1941-1942, are in an advanced state of decomposition…The bodies of [victims of] various sexes and ages.-from children to elderly people, are piled up in several layers (3-4) in a grave and between them there is a large amount of decomposed blood, which even soaked the earth above the bodies. After the exhumation of the bodies, there was a strong smell of putrefacation and decomposition. Traces of gunshot wounds [caused] by sub-machineguns and rifles were found on the bodies exhumed from the graves. The bodies in the lower layers were shot in several places-- the injuries are of the most varied character -- head wounds, thorax wounds, spinal wounds, abdominal wounds, and wounds of the extremities. Some of them were obviously lethal (penetrating head wounds), while many of the others can be classified as grave or non-lethal. Some bodies of small children and teenagers showed traces of hemorrhage and bruises were discovered on the heads, while smashed and crushed skulls indicated the impact of solid items, obviously the butts of sub-machineguns or rifles. Some of the children's bodies displayed no traces of violence… Given the positions of the layered bodies in the graves, the absence of clothes on them, the large amount of blood between the bodies, and the nature and number of wounds on the bodies in the lower layers we arrive at the following conclusion: the murder victims had been forced to strip naked before being shot and forced to lie down alive in the graves in a certain order, after which they were mowed down by the sub-machineguns. Another row of people was placed above…those shot and was also shot. Many of the victims did not die immediately but were buried half-alive, while some children were stunned by a blow to the head and also covered by earth while half-alive…

…On June 3, 1942, the police and gendarmerie of Lipovets County, of Turbov County, and of the city of Vinnitsa ( i.e. about 25 people were from the [Ukrainian auxiliary] police and about 20 people from [German] gendarmerie) came at night to the village of Vakhnovka. They surrounded the town…and started to arrest the Jewish civilian population. I too was arrested, together with my wife and four-year old daughter. All those arrested were taken to the Catholic church, where Germans and [Ukrainian] police guards [were posted]. After the arrests were completed, at about 7 [a.m.] the policemen took 20 people and forced them to dig a grave near the Turbov Forest, about 2.5 kilometers from Vakhnovka village. When they finished digging the grave, these 20 people were shot by policemen. At about 10 a.m. all 413 [Jewish] civilians were taken to the site where…the shooting was to take place… On the way the Germans started to abuse those who had been arrested; they beat them, killing 2 of them… When [we] were brought to the shooting place, Germans and policemen forced the fathers and mothers to strip naked and then to completely undress the other members of their families, even children of four to five months or younger. [Then] the fathers with their families were forced at gun-point to lie down in the grave, [there were] 10 people in a row. The murderers opened fire and then placed 10 more people over them [the previous victims] and shot them. In this way 413 people were shot in a single grave. My wife and four-year old daughter Nina were shot before my eyes while I was spared. Those monsters threw the small children into the grave alive before my very eyes...

In 1942, on June 3… a brutal mass murder of Soviet civilians took place in the town of Vakhnovka, Lipovets County. The witness Dmitriy Avramovich Ogorodniychuk told the commission [the following] about this terrible annihilation of women, children, and elderly people: "During the night of June 3, 1942 the gendarmerie of Lipovets and Turbov, together with [auxiliary] police of these counties, raided Vakhnovka. All women with children and elderly people of Jewish origin who were apprehended were locked into the former Catholic church. 20 men were taken away at night. It turned out that they were taken to dig a grave about 2.5 kilometers outside the village of Vakhnovka, near the Turbov Forest. After they finished digging the grave, these twenty people were the first to lie dead in it. And at 11 a.m. all of us (including the witness) were taken to the shooting site. On the way the gendarmes beat people with sticks; 2 people died from this abuse. At the grave the mothers and fathers were ordered to strip naked and then to undress the rest of their families. The naked people were pushed into the grave (some of them entered on their own); they lay down 10 people in a row, after which an executioner shot them with a sub-machinegun. The nursing infants were thrown into the grave alive by the German monsters and the adults fell on top of them (this was revealed by the exhumation of the bodies, which revealed mothers lying on top of and embracing their children). My wife and four-year old daughter Nina were shot before my eyes, while I myself managed to escape. A total of 413 people were shot, including 100 children and 150 women; the rest were men. Among those who were thrown into the grave were many who were still alive; they had only been-wounded but not killed-I saw this when I was standing next to the grave with new groups of people about to be shot"….