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Murder Story of Berezdov Jews at the Butik Tract
Murder Site
Butik Tract (Dyakov Area)
Ukraine (USSR)
According to a ChGK report, on August 10, 1941 Jewish residents from Berezdov were ordered by the Germans to assemble and to take with them shovels and brooms on the pretext of their being taken to repair roads (and possibly to clean up the Slavuta railway station). After a selection was carried out at the collection point, 152 Jewish men were loaded onto several trucks and taken under guard outside the town, to the Butik tract located about one kilometer from the village of Dyakov. Upon their arrival at the site the men were made to dig a pit and then were shot to death with rifles and sub-machine guns by members of 1st SS Motorized Infantry Brigade, who also threw hand grenades at the wounded victims who were lying in the pit. After the shooting one Jewish man who had been kept alive was forced to cover the pit. In order to conceal the mass grave the Germans made the local Ukrainian residents level the ground over it and plant groundcover.
Vasilyi Semenyuk, who was born in 1930 in the village of Dyakov (near the town of Berezdov) and lived there during the war years, testified:
…. In the summer of 1941 my cows were grazing at the [Butik] tract. … During the day of the [mass] shooting, it was the turnip harvest and many people were working in the field. [Several] trucks from Berezdov arrived at the [field]. The Germans ordered those whose cows were grazing in the field to move away. However, I did have time to see how the [Jews] were unloaded from the truck. It seems that all of them were carrying brooms. Afterwards we drove the cows home [to Dyakov village]. People who had been working in the field returned to the village as well. From the village we could hear shooting and explosions of [hand] grenades, and then all became quiet. In the afternoon we again drove the cows out to the tract. I went to see the shooting site. The pit with the murdered Jews was lightly covered with earth. The blood [of the victims] was seeping through it. Many brooms were lying [nearby] on the ground. The shooting site was located not far from the border of the Syomaky [village] field.
David Hoshkis (ed.), Bleeding Wound, (Slavuta, 1996), p.77. (Ukrainian).
Butik Tract (Dyakov Area)
vicinity
Murder Site
Ukraine (USSR)
50.473;27.114