Murder Story of Tomashpol Jews at the Tomashpol Jewish Cemetery

…Time can not erase from human memory that terrible day of August 5, 1941… From early in the morning crowds of Ukrainians from the surrounding villages started to stream toward the center of the town of Tomashpol, following an order from the commandant's office. The [local] policemen searched the streets with dogs. The gendarmes drove the Jews out of their houses. A certain Pokinchereda, who had been appointed village elder, was haranguing people in the center of the town. He shouted clichés, blaming all the troubles of the Ukrainian people on the Jews. The priest of an Orthodox Church, Romanenko, tried to refute him, claiming that the [Jewish] people was innocent, that God gives life even to a worm. With his words he only succeeded in stirring up greater wrath from the Jew-hater. Then some murderers, headed by SS-men [sic], arrived. They surrounded the people [Jews] who had been collected and forced them toward a bridge leading to the Yampol road. SS-men armed with rifles and sub-machineguns whipped the poor people who were lagging behind, set dogs on them, and shouted: "Schnell, schnell auf Arbeit" [Hurry up, to work]. The entire family of [my] Aunt Esther was in that crowd: she, her husband Burekh Zemblbeker, their 13-year-old son Chaim, [and] her sister Doba, with her 4-year-old little daughter in her arms. Doba stumbled after being struck in the back with the end of a rifle, but retained her balance. When she turned around, she saw the ferocious face of a guard. Rolling his eyes wildly, he pointed to a nearby alley, pushed her again in the side with his rifle but and, shouting "schnell, schnell," pushed her out of the crowd. She ran away, terrified to death, and found herself in a nearby, totally deserted, quiet street. It is difficult to say what had motivated that guard… The people were taken to the cemetery… No graves had been dug: those doomed to death were placed at the edge of a deep ravine, and they were struck by bullets from machine-guns. Afterwards, local Ukrainians buried the bodies of those who had been shot. On that terrible day, for a long time, crying and moans were heard far away; for a long time the earth was heaving above the murder victims. Many [in fact] were [only wounded] and some had been missed by the evil bullets. For example, the 12-year-old boy Misha Urman was covered by his mother who, when she fell, pulled him with her into that terrible ravine. Late at night, completely covered in blood, he crawled out of the grave where his parents and 288 other fellow townspeople lay. Two girls also crawled out of the grave on that night. Two other [people] [had earlier] managed to escape from the crowd and hide among the tombstones in the cemetery…