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Murder Story of Voronovitsa Jews at the Stepanovka Machine Tractor Station
Murder Site
Stepanovka Machine Tractor Station
Ukraine (USSR)
About 280 Jewish inmates of the Voronovitsa labor camp deemed unfit to work -- mostly women, children, and elderly people-- were collected in late January 1943 in the Catholic church in Voronovitsa, forced to strip, and then taken to the machine-tractor station in Stepanovka village, about 2 kilometers from Voronovitsa, and shot dead. The perpetrators were apparently members of the SS unit responsible for security in the Gaysin sector of the Highway IV construction site. 270 Jews from Voronovitsa County were shot at the same site in May 1943.
Related Resources
ChGK Soviet Reports
ChGK Soviet Reports from Voronovitsa
…We, the undersigned…on this date carried out the exhumation of the grave of the Soviet civilians shot by the German occupiers in the area of the Stepanovka MTS, 2 kilometers from the county seat, near the Shendorovskaya Forest dacha. The following was established by the exhumation:
The grave is 38 meters long and 6 meters wide. The people who were shot turned out to be men, women, and children - a total of 550 people were discovered.
The bodies are lying in groups; one group is lying with their heads facing one side of the grave and another group with their heads towards the feet of the first group, etc. The children are lying haphazardly among the bodies of those shot.
The shooting was carried out from sub-machine guns aimed at the back of the head. The examination of the bodies showed 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…
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-54-1260 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19690
From the Testimony of Efim Berzon, who was born in 1895:
… On January 30, 1943, a German murder squad of 50-60 members arrived in the town and started to round up people to be shot. I and my family-- my wife Maria…, my daughter Rakhil [?], born in 1923, and my son Moisei, born in 1933 -- were arrested [too] and taken to the Catholic church. All 281 of us -- elderly people, men, women, and children -- were collected in the Catholic church. Afterward, we were forced to take off our clothes. I knew that we were going to be shot and begged one German to let me and my family go. My family was not released but, since I was a skilled barber, I was spared. The other 280 people were taken and shot in the area of the Stepanovka MTS, 2 kilometers from the county seat. No one returned from there.
I also know personally that on May 24, 1943, the German murderers collected innocent civilians throughout the county; [they] collected a group of 270, consisting of elderly people, women, and children, and shot them in a grave prepared in advance in the area of the Stepanovka MTS…
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-54-1260 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19690
Stepanovka Machine Tractor Station
agricultural machinery and tractor station
Murder Site
Ukraine (USSR)
49.111;28.689