Swamp near Pustoshka Related Communities
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Murder story of Pustoshka Jews in the Swamp near Pustoshka
Murder Site
Pustoshka Area
Russia (USSR)
On March 3-4, 1942 the ghetto inmates were taken to the swamp between the older and the newer parts of Pustoshka and shot to death in groups of 15 people. Those who were wounded but remained alive were also thrown into the pit. The Jewish children who tried to escape from the murder site had dogs set on them. The dogs tore their clothes off and the Germans dragged the children back to the shooting site and threw them into the pit alive. It is estimated that the number of the shooting victims was 58. Some testimonies report that about 100 Jews were shot in Pustoshka on that day.
Related Resources
Written Testimonies
Soviet Reports
ChGK Soviet Reports
From the testimony of Reshetnikov [no first name given], a half Jew, who was born in 1934 and lived in Pustoshka during the war years:
The Jews were shot during the night between March 3 and March 4; it was definitely winter. It was Germans and policemen who carried out the shooting. Of course no one saw them but people say that most of them were policemen.… Before the shooting the Germans searched the Jewish homes for valuables, after the shooting they did the same.… One policeman, Dima, came to our home and said to everyone: "One Jew about his age (he pointed at me) tried to escape so we set a dog on him and it finished him off." I do not know how it finished him off, perhaps it bit him to death. The boy's name was Semyon. I forgot his last name.
YVA O.3 / 4652
Pustoshka Area
Swamp
Murder Site
Russia (USSR)
56.333;29.366