Murder story of Vasilkov Jews in the Kovalevka Ravine

On September 3, 1941 between about 100 (according to Soviet records) and about 300 (according to German reports) Jews of Vasilkov of all ages and both sexes were collected in the orphanage building on Bolnichnaya Street and were taken from there by truck to the eastern outskirts of Vasilkov. At this murder site the victims were forced to strip to their underwear, robbed of the valuables they had with them, and then taken in small groups to the edge of a ravine near the Pokrov Christian cemetery, known as the Kovalevka Ravine, and shot dead there. The perpetrators of this massacre were members of a forward detachment of Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C or soldiers from an unidentified Waffen SS unit. After this massacre, Jews from Vasilkov and from nearby villages continued to be taken to the Kovalevka Ravine and shot there. In July 1942 an unknown number of Jews, apparently both from Vasilkov and from the towns and villages of Vasilkov County, were also shot to death at the Kovalevka Ravine, apparently by members of the German security and order police.