Murder story of Velikiy Zhvanchik Jews in the Sokolets Area

We did not manage to be evacuated in time [from Velikiy Zhvanchik] and the Germans soon arrived. The Jews were in state of terror…. The elderly Jews had convened to take counsel and decided that if they took out the Torah scroll and came out to meet the Germans, the latter might have mercy and not kill them. That was their decision and they acted accordingly. They placed a small table at the center of the shtetl [town], put the Torah on it, and all of the old people went outside. The oldest one embraced the Torah, and we children just stood there watching. The Germans approached the Jews, grabbed the Torah, threw it down, and started beating everyone mercilessly. By then everybody understood that it was the end for us Jews…. Every day we expected a pogrom.… On the 31st of August a pogrom did take place in our own shtetl of Zhvanchik. It was a Sunday. The weather was fine and sunny. Early in the morning Yashenka, my youngest brother, ran out as usual to play with some other kids …. Suddenly Yashenka ran in and said that there were Germans on the street. The Jews were being forced out of their homes, and were just standing there, crying. He didn't realize that a pogrom was beginning. Mother came up to me and said: "Let's go see what is happening there." She didn't realize either what was going on. We went out to the street.… Many people were gathered on the town square.… I came closer to the square and saw SS men in black uniforms holding automatic rifles and chasing people out of their homes. The women and children were crying and screaming, and the Germans were herding them to the town square. There, together with [Ukrainian auxiliary] policemen, they surrounded the Jews so that none of them could escape. It was a ghastly sight. It rises before my eyes to the present day. When I approached the town square a German called out to me "come here!" I immediately got the idea to tell him that I was Ukrainian, and he said "Veg!", meaning "Disappear!".… I turned around and ran away. I gestured to my mother so that she would run too.… We ran into our house, where my father was sitting and reading the Bible, completely oblivious to what was going on and unaware of what was taking place outside. My mother immediately screamed that we should all go up to the attic and hide. Yashenka was not home and he was captured by the Germans. We put up a ladder and climbed up to the attic…. We heard the Germans come for us and then leave. They decided that we had already been forced outside. After that my father went up to my mother and said: 'I am a rabbi and wherever the rest of the Jews are going I must go the same way. Maybe they are being taken away to work. I have no right to hide.' My mother started crying, begging him not to go, saying that all the Jews were being taken to be shot. However, father replied: "All the more so then must I go with all of them.' He left without saying anything else. He was a very intelligent man, and he understood that we were doomed.… Father approached the Jews and said: "Whatever happens, I will be with you.' He found Yashenka and said to him: "Go to them [Germans] and tell them that you are a Ukrainian shepherd; maybe they will believe you. You are young, you must remain alive." He also told him that the rest of the family were hiding in the attic. Yashenka went up to the fascists and said to them: 'Let me go, I am a Ukrainian shepherd, I am here by accident." … and he was let go.… Then everybody was forced into a field where two large pits had been dug. The second pit was prepared for the Jews of another shtetl [Sokolets], located near Zhvanchik. Those pits were located at a distance of eight kilometers from the shtetl. The unfortunate Jews were forced to walk that distance.… The sick and the crippled were taken to their death in carts. Many were killed on the way – mostly these were the sick and the handicapped. After the pogrom my mother tried to find out where my father had disappeared to.… After a while, Yashenka appeared and told us everything: Father was no longer alive, like the rest of the Jews. We all began to cry. He told us how one old Jew put on his tallis [prayer shawl], took with him a photograph of his daughter, who lived in a different town, and was the first one to jump into the pit as he uttered the words "Shma Yisrael." The Ukrainians later recounted that the earth over the pit heaved for three days. The fascists, who were truly beasts, had buried the Jews alive. We remained in the attic for three days without food or drink. After the pogrom the peasants went through the Jewish houses with burlap sacks, looting the Jews' property.… On a beautiful day in June [1942], mother got up early in order to go to town to beg for food…. [My brother] Grisha and I remained at home [in the ghetto, where the remaining Jews had been concentrated]. Some gendarmes came from the province of Minkovtsy. They immediately started chasing the Jews out onto the street, Grisha and me among them. Everyone screamed and cried. We right away understood that they were taking people to be shot. Immediately some trucks drove up to load us inside and take us away. It was market day and all the peasants gathered around to watch, as if this was some kind of spectacle. Suddenly I heard one grandmother say to her granddaughter: "You better run, they are taking us to be shot". I saw the girl running and I followed her. The Germans and the policemen did not notice us. We ran into the town…. I ran through kitchen gardens. Suddenly I heard a woman screaming and scolding me for trampling on her vegetables. The thought went through my mind as I ran 'she is worrying about her vegetables, while I am trying to save myself from death!' I finally made it to our friends and couldn't believe my eyes – I saw my mother there. I told her everything: that everyone had been taken away to be shot, Grisha among them. Mother started crying inconsolably.… Finally, mother and I, hungry and grief-stricken, reached Gorodok [the town], where my sister was.… Suddenly, a few days later, Grisha reappeared. He told us what had happened. They drove everyone in trucks to be shot, to the same site where the people had been shot during the first pogrom. There was already a pit prepared for them there. The fascists counted ten young men, including Grisha, and told them to lie face down and not to look. … (They still needed a work force. That is why they kept these ten young men alive). They started throwing people alive into the pit. The swine were sparing their bullets. It gave them special pleasure to abuse and terrorize the Jews. Terrible cries and groans were heard. Then they told the ten young men to get up and cover the pit with earth. They threw earth into the pit and heard groans from there…. The earth was rising and heaving.… Grisha stood there, and his eyes filled with tears. He thought that I was in the pit, along with everyone else, because he didn't see me escaping. Everyone [the ten who had to bury the bodies] was driven [back] to the ghetto, but Grisha ran away the same evening and succeeded in reaching Gorodok….