Murder story of Poninka Jews in the Poninka Forest

In the summer [late August or early September 1941] I was bringing sorrel borscht [to my brother], I remember it as if it was today.… It was warm, but somehow it suddenly became dark and there was thunder and lightning…. Kolya, my brother… had taken the herd to graze in the forest. I knew well the road [to the forest]. When it began to thunder, I became frightened. I was only a boy. It became dark and a forest is after all a forest. I [began to call for my brother]: "Kolya, Kolya, Kolya!" At that minute my arms were grabbed and I was taken away. Derkas [an ethnic] German … was the head of the [Ukrainian auxiliary] police [or, according to other testimonies, the head of a local factory]. I saw him there – in the forest…. He was wearing an S.S. uniform [Ukrainian auxiliary policemen wore black uniforms whose color was similar to that of S.S. uniforms].… Everything was ready [for the shooting]. They [S.S. unit members] were waiting for a new group [of Jews]…. I was stripped naked. I was standing in this group [at the edge of the pit]. Do you understand? I was standing…. And Derkas, this German, was standing there … wearing an S.S. uniform, with black binoculars and black gloves, casually popping candies into his mouth, I remember this just the way it was. He was eating candies.… When I was little I looked very much like a Jew, I had dark skin…. The Jews were placed above the pit in two rows in a checkerboard pattern: old people, [behind them the] women, [and finally] the children - I was standing with them since I was then seven years old. They were naked. They [Jews] took each other by the hand and swayed back and forth; they sang with closed lips – [they were] praying. But I have to say that there were two young women who were hysterical. Otherwise no one was screaming or begging for his life before the Germans and the [Ukrainian] policemen. [While] they [Jews] were swaying, singing, praying, Derkas [was shooting them] with a sub-machinegun… It was terrible… terrible…. Several Germans with sub-machineguns were there and about 20 of ours [Ukrainian policemen]. A German [S.S. executioner] was standing there, holding a sub-machinegun, on the running board of a huge black car with the back open. Derkas was shooting from the car with a sub-machinegun. He was holding the sub-machinegun and a huge German shepherd was sitting on his right side. A fire was burning about 20 meters from the pit. The Jews were taking off their clothes near it as the [Ukrainian] policemen had ordered them to strip naked. I was stripped naked there too. My clothes were thrown into the fire.… The [Ukrainian] policemen were putting the good clothes into a pile, while the bad ones they threw into the fire. I was standing with the Jews above the pit when Yurkovsky [one of the Ukrainian policemen] recognized me and pulled me away. I don't know what he said to one of the Germans, but I remember his name - Hans. Yurkovsky lived in an apartment in a house near ours and knew me well. It was in the afternoon…. The site was not surrounded [by the Ukrainian policemen]. No one was guarding the site. I saw all [of the murder operation]. They [Jews] were taken [to the murder site] in covered trucks…. In each truck was [sitting] one German with a sub-machinegun and one German driver.… Why was I taken [at that time] with the Jews [to be killed]? Because I looked very much like a Jew and also because not all Jewish boys were circumcised … therefore there was no difference [between us].… Those Jews who had been taken to the site, they all were shot to death. Darkas himself shot them all to death with his sub-machinegun. Afterwards he wanted to make fun of me. Darkas put on me the dress of a Jewish girl who had been shot to death since a yellow star [of David] or [yellow] patch was sewed onto it. It was a nice dress with beautiful roses on it – black ones in the front and blue ones in the back. … Two [Ukrainian] policemen took me to my house located not far [from the murder site]. Apparently they were making sure that no one would shoot me to death on my way home [mistaking taking me for a Jew].… Jews, a man and a woman who were still capable of working, covered the pit with earth. Then they were killed in the last pit that was [later] covered with earth by Ukrainian policemen. The pits were huge. They [Jews] themselves dug [i.e., were forced to dig] those pits.… When I was there [the Jews] were shot to death in three pits; maybe there were more pits, I don't know. I was standing above my own grave and I didn't want to stand there anymore. I don't wish anyone to have to stand before his own grave....

… In the second half of the summer or early autumn of 1941, during the war with the Germans,… women from the village of Poninka, including me, were working on the German kolkhoz…. In the second half of the day we saw trucks carrying Jews; the trucks were full.… The trucks turned toward a forest located near a small lake, near a ridge [of small hills]. [On their arrival at the site] all the Jews were taken off [of the trucks] and forced to dig pits. Then those unfortunates were placed above these pits and sub-machinegun fire [was heard] – rat-tat-tat.... All the Jews were shot to death there.…

… Jews from Poninka were shot to death on several different occasions. First, they [Germans] shot the Jewish men to death in 1941. [The remaining] Jews of Poninka were shot to death in the forest outside Poninka in two locations: a ridge [of small hills] and [a place located] slightly beyond it. [The first murder operation was carried out as follows:] the Germans ordered [the Jewish men] to report for work on the construction of a road. [When] the Jewish men arrived [at the site], supposedly for work, they were arrested, taken to the forest, and then shot to death there. Women, children, and elderly Jews – they were all forced into a paper factory workshop in the early summer of 1942 [sic for the late summer or early September of 1941]. Darkas was appointed by the Germans to be head of the factory [according to one testimony he was the head of the local Ukrainian auxiliary police]. He was [an ethnic] German…. I was employed to clean windows and doors in his office and to keep everything in order there. … Once I saw through the window the doors of the factory workshop open and a stream of Jewish women, children, and elderly people being forced inside. Afterwards a German officer came into the building …. He entered the office and turned to me in German. I was standing there quietly, indicating that I didn't understand German… Maybe he took me for a Jew since he looked at me for a very long time.… At that time the Jews were being taken out [of the factory] in covered trucks that looked like buses.… [The Jews] were shot to death there, [near] Poninka, in the forest.… While the Jews were being taken [to the murder site] by truck one Jewish woman, a teacher, without tears and without appearing distraught, shouted to my mother, who lived nearby…: "Aunt, good-bye, good-bye!" She then took off her nice lacquered shoes and threw them into the sluice under the bridge over the Khomora River. Apparently she didn't want the Germans to get hold of such nice shoes. The Jews knew what fate the Germans were preparing for them, but outwardly they appeared to be brave, [saying] that the Germans would not harm Jews. When the Jews were taken [to be shot] by the Germans, the Jews were told to take with them documents, gold, and valuables since they [supposedly] were going to be sent to Israel [then Palestine]. But the Jews knew only too well to which "Israel" they were going to be taken.… One day after the shooting of the Jews, workers from the factory were taken to cover the pits with [the bodies of] Jews who had been murdered – women, children, and old people, in the Poninka Forest. Among the workers of the factory was a worker named Kadakh, apparently [an ethnic] German. When he was covering the bodies in the pit,… he looked down and saw lying in front of him a blond Jewish girl, the daughter of the head of the post office of [the town of] Polonnoye. She was a beautiful girl. This beautiful girl was lying on top of her dead mother. Kadakh quickly threw a shovelful of earth over the girl in order not to see her beautiful [apparently] dead face. When he threw [the earth over her], the girl [suddenly] opened her eyes … Kadakh fainted. He regained his consciousness after being doused with water. Afterwards Derkas criticized Kadakh, [saying]: "Why should we pay attention to Kadakh? Don't we have other things to do?" On one occasion, after the workers [from the factory] covered [the bodies], they were angry and complained. After that workers from the factory were no longer given this task.…