Murder Story of Petrovskogo Imeni Jews at the Sadstantsiya Tract

...On April 5, 1942, at 4 a.m., armed policemen burst into our house, in which, as I already explained, several families were living, arrested all the dwellers of our house, including me and my mother A.S. Gergel and brought [us] under the guard to the courtyard of the county police. At that moment the police courtyard was surrounded by police forces. In the courtyard there were already many Jewish families, including the sick, the elderly, and women with nursing babies. In the morning the entire Jewish population of the town of Gorodishche was gathered in the police courtyard. Nobody informed us that we were going to be shot but we guessed as much ourselves. At about 7 a.m. the sick, the elderly, and the women with nursing babies were placed on the carts harnessed to horses. The rest of the citizens, including me and my mother, were taken out to the street and lined up in a column consisting of about 300 people. Guarded by policemen, we were led along the road leading to a village of Mliev. The carts with the elderly, women, and children were driving behind the column. There were about 10 carts. Germans, together with policemen, guarded the column. There were about 10-12 of them. Two of them were had sheep-dogs. Several Germans and policemen walked in front of the column. I personally saw among them N.A. Zhuk, wearing a police uniform. Several Germans and policemen also walked behind the column. Other policemen went with rifles at the ready on the sides of the column of the doomed. Thus, we arrived at the holding area of some collective farm situated near the outskirts of Mliev village. There I saw to the left of the road we were walking along a freshly dug, long ditch extending parallel to the road, 4-5 meters from it. I cannot tell you the size of that ditch since I, together with my mother, was in the middle of the column and could not see the ditch in its entirety. The ditch was about 1 meter deep. On the right of the road there were bushes, in which I saw two machine-guns placed 3-4 meters apart and pointed toward the ditch. There were policemen and Germans at the place where the machine-guns were. The column was stopped at the place I have described. At that moment I saw N.A. Zhuk, who issued some orders to the policemen. The people in the column became agitated, the [people in the ]column moved from one side to another, getting mixed up with each other. Screaming and weeping on the part of the women and children began to be heard. All of us at that moment were expecting death, our state was terrible, indescribable. I stood next to my mother. The machine-guns started to fire. I do not remember whether there was an order or a signal before the machine-guns opened fire. The people started to fall. At that moment my mother pushed me into the ditch and herself dropped down with me. We fell on top of bodies. Bodies were falling on us from above. I do not remember what happened further in that place since I passed out from all the horror I witnessed. I regained consciousnesscame only at night. I touched my mother. She was alive. With great difficulty we crawled out of the ditch and, moving as far away from the road as we could, we headed toward the town of Gorodishche...