Murder story of Komsomolskoye Jews in the Zhezhelev Forest

…On September 10, 1941 the Gestapo carried out mass arrests of Soviet citizens on the territory of Komsomolskoye County. All those arrested were driven by Germans to the mill's barns and to the territory of the oil-processing factory of the town of Komsomolsk [Komsomolskoye]. The population was told that they were going to be sent to work to others areas. After that the arrestees were kept for several days without food and water, then loaded onto the trucks and taken to Zhezhelev forest and then shot there…

…Early in September 10, 1941 the entire town of Komsomolskoye was surrounded by a murder squad and the entire population was driven out of their houses by the murder squad's members and taken by covered vehicles to a shop at the territory of the mill (there is a dairy there now). The population (children, adults, the elderly, cripples, [and] ill people) was held in this shop, locked in and guarded from the morning to 4 p.m., i.e. until the shooting pits at Zhezhelev forest were ready. On that day the head of the murder squad arrived at the shop into which the Jews had been forced and announced that whoever had precious items of gold, such as coins, rings, earrings, bracelets, etc. and handed all of this over would be spared. Whoever had such things, of course, handed them over but then the head of the murder squad announced that all of us were still going to be shot. After that a loud noise, crying, screaming, arose in the shop so, to quiet people down, the guards beat them with rods...About 800 people had been driven together there; the men were separated from women by a rope and the guards did not allow them to mix. Before the shooting the head of the murder squad separated 12 skilled male workers and 5 women, who were left to work… At 4 p.m. the rest of the people were taken by truck to the Zhezhelev forest, where graves had been prepared, and were shot - first the men, then the women and the children. Sometimes the children were buried alive…

On September 10, 1941 at 5 a. m. Komsomolskoye was surrounded by an SS detachment, some members of which were riding horses; others were infantry men [armed] with submachine-guns and light machine-guns. Some of the Germans and gendarmes drove the population out of their apartments, every single person was driven out, the old, the young and nursing infants; the people were not even allowed to put on their clothes but were taken from their beds and driven outside barefoot toward the former grain storage building on the territory of the mill. The men were separated from the women and children. Afterwards, the Germans searched everyone. Whoever had money, watches, or other valuables was robbed of them; whoever had good shoes or overshoes were robbed of them by the Germans. The personal papers of everyone were also taken and burned on the spot in the grain storage building. All this lasted from 5 a.m. until 2 p.m. At 2 p.m. covered trucks came and the people were loaded onto them, 30 to a truck, and were taken to the forest near Zhezhelev village, 5 kilometers from Komsomolskoye. Three pits measuring 10 x 5 x 3 meters [each] had been prepared there. The people were unloaded from the trucks and made to sit in a trench about 50 meters from these pits; each time 15 people were brought to the pit, forced to strip and 15 Germans from the SS [armed] with rifles shot them in the back of the head. The nursing infants were thrown into the pits alive; the young children age 5-6 were taken by the arm to the pit, where the Germans shot them. In this way, 15 at a time, 835 people, including elderly ones, children, cripples, and sick people, were shot by the Germans…