Murder Story of Zlynka Jews at the Zlynka Machine Tractor Station

I do not remember the exact date but in the month of February 1942 a mass shooting of the Zlynka Jewish population was carried out by the Germans together with the police. For that purpose all the Jews were collected and relocated to the buildings of the Zlynka machine tractor station [MTS]. The day before [the shooting] we Communist Party members, all of us, were summoned to the police station. All together we were numbered about 15 Communists …. We were forced to clear the snow from an anti-tank trench. …The following day all of us Communists were again summoned to the police station and then taken to the bridge across the stream. When we were sitting near the bridge the police, together with the Germans, brought about four or five carts with Jews from Vyshkovo village to the MTS. Then we were all taken to the place where we had cleared the trench the day before. We were stopped on the road about 40-50 meters before the trench. About an hour later the Jews from the MTS were brought. I do not know how many they were but they people say that 214 of them were shot on that day. When the Jews were brought close to the trench, about 10-12 Germans approached the trench. […] and began to push the Jews into the trench while the others guarded the Jews so that no one could escape. When there were about 35 Jews remaining at the edge of the trench all of us who were sitting on the road were ordered to the trench. When we came there, I and the others saw there were four Germans in the trench who were piling up the Jews that had been pushed in from the trench edge face down on top of the shot ones. They were shot point blank on the spot. When the last boy, who was 14-15 years old, begged them not to shoot him, saying that his mother and father were Russian, the Germans and the police did not listen to him. A German shot him in the head and he too was thrown on top of those who had already been shot. As soon as everyone had been shot, the German got out of the trench and ordered […] that the ones who had been shot be covered with snow. […] They ordered us to cover them with snow so we began to cover with the snow. One person moaned a lot and asked to be shot [to death]. We finished covering them and left. The day after the shooting the police again sent us, the above mentioned people, and some others to bury the Jews who had been shot. When we came there Dobkin, the timber factory guard, was screaming. We asked him about his wound and he said he was slightly wounded but could not get out. Nobody helped him and he began to ask to be shot. One person […] took a rifle from a policeman […] and shot Dobkin. After that we covered all of them with snow, then with a thin layer of earth, and went home.

As soon as Zlynka County was occupied in August 1941, the German Fascist executioners and their collaborators immediately undertook the mass liquidation of the Jewish population of Zlynka, the town and the county. More than 200 Jews were taken to the premises of the Zlynka machine tractor station [MTS] located one kilometer west of Zlynka. In the month of February 1942 all [of the Jews] were taken from the MTS area to an anti-tank trench located 400 meters northwest of the MTS…According to preliminary data, it appears that that time the German Fascist executioners shot more than 200 innocent Jewish civilians, including children, old people, and women.