Murder Story of Ratno Jews at the Old Cemetery in Ratno

Approximately a month after the shooting of Soviet civilians [i.e. Jews] at Prochód Hill, the chief of the [Ukrainian auxiliary] police [Boris] Logvinskyy ordered me and other policemen to convoy the Soviet civilians who had been held in detention at the Ratno [Ukrainian auxiliary] police station.... The number of detainees was about 20, maybe more, and we, a group of about 10 policemen, including me, convoyed the detainees toward the cemetery of the town of Ratno, to a pit that had been prepared ahead of time, that was located about 100-200 meters from the cemetery. The size of the pit was approximately 10 meters length, 2 meters wide, and 1-1.5 deep. The chief of the[Ukrainian auxiliary] police Logvinskyy and another German ordered the detainees to strip naked and when the last ones, including women of different ages, were undressed, chief of police Logvinskyy took them near the pit, ordered them to lie [inside] facedown, and shot them to death with single shots from a machine-gun. Logvinskyy was shooting these Soviet civilians before our eyes, while other policemen were standing in a cordon to prevent the detainees from escaping.…

… During all this time I was living on Zabolotevskaya Street which leads from the center of the town of Ratno toward the cemetery, located on the outskirts of the town. The cemetery is about a kilometer from my house. I personally did not witnessed the shooting of the Soviet civilians [i.e. Jews], nevertheless, as far as I can remember, it was in the summer of 1942, I don't remember the exact date. I was in the yard of my house and I personally saw Germans and [Ukrainian auxiliary] policemen droive a group of about 40 Soviet civilians, including children, elderly people, and women… via Zabolotevskaya Street toward the cemetery. When the above-mentioned group of Soviet civilians passed by on the street near my house, one of the Soviet civilians who was in the group – a male of 30-32 years old, tried to run away, but he was machine-gunned to death and fell to the ground about 15 meters away from me.… The rest of the group was driven forward, toward the cemetery. 20-30 minutes after that, shooting from machine-guns was heard. The shooting lasted approximately 15-20 minutes, and then I saw that the [Ukrainian auxiliary] policemen and the Germans who had convoyed the Soviet civilians towards the cemetery return. I did not see how the shooting of the Soviet civilians near the cemetery was carried out, but I heard from the residents of the town of Ratno that all the Soviet civilians in this group were shot to death by [Ukrainian] policemen and Germans.…