Murder story of Rechitsa Jews at the Wine Distillery Area

Around November 25, 1941… they proceeded to shoot the Jewish population. That day, at four o'clock in the evening, seven trucks arrived at the camp where the Jews were being held. Forty five to forty seven people were loaded onto each truck. The first group of trucks loaded with people set off to the direction of the wine distillery, where they [the Jews] were shot in an anti-tank trench. I and my mother found ourselves in the seventh truck. The shooting process took place in the following order: the truck drove up close to the anti-tank trench; groups of 15 – 20 people were unloaded and forced into the anti-tank trench. The police, under the supervision of two Germans, shot them [the Jews] to death from submachine-guns.… I remember one incident that took place at the time of the shooting. When the old men, the old women, and the children were being set up to be shot, a boy of Jewish origin, Boris Smilovitskiy ,happened to be in that group. He began to shout by way of resistance: "Bandits, fascists, you are shedding our blood but the Red Army will win and avenge us." A policeman named Panchenko, who was taking part in the shooting, knocked Smilovitskiy down with his rifle butt and the policeman Spiro shot him to death with his submachine-gun.