Murder Story of Voronovitsa Jews at the Stepanovka Sugar Factory

… We, the undersigned…on this date carried out the exhumation of the grave of the Soviet civilians who were shot by the German occupiers in the area of the Stepanovka sugar factory. The following was established by the exhumation: the grave is 57 meters long and 8 meters wide; the people who were shot turned out to be men, women, and children; a total of 1,280 people were discovered; the bodies are lying in groups, one group is lying with heads facing one side of the grave and another group with the heads facing the feet of the first group, etc. The children are lying haphazardly among the bodies of the shooting victims. The shooting was carried out from sub-machineguns aimed at the back of the head. The examination of the bodies revealed still preserved muscle, hair, and the vestiges of underwear and of clothes. Judging by the degree of the bodies' decomposition, the shooting was carried out 1.5-2 years ago…

… I personally saw a German SS murder squad arriving on November 11, 1941 in Voronovitsa town and starting, during the night, to round up residents of all the nationalities - Jews, Ukrainians, and Russians - 630 men, women, and children; I too was arrested. At 6 A.M. on November 12, 1941 our entire group was taken to the area of the Stepanovka sugar factory, and [there] the Germans forced the civilians to strip. After that, they lined up a group of 60 people and forced them to lie down, with their heads to one side, in a grave prepared in advance. When the group was lying down, the Germans started to shoot the victims in the head from sub-machineguns. Another group was made to lie down in the same way with their heads toward the feet of those already shot and [this group was] shot too. Children were thrown into the grave alive and covered with earth. This atrocity lasted about 2 hours. I saw that some guards were not paying attention, so I decided to run away and escape; shots were fired at me, but I escaped. On a second occasion, on December 3, 1941, another German murder squad of 50 people rounded up 380 civilians and shot them in the same grave. I saw with my own eyes how those people were taken to be shot. On May 27, 1942, in the same manner, the Germans arrested 270 Soviet civilians and shot them in the same grave. I saw this with my own eyes since at that time I was working at the barber shop and saw these civilians being taken to be shot. When I counted [the people] in the groups, it turned out that, there were 270 people, including the children and elderly....