Murder story of Stavishche Jews in the Revukha Forest

…On August 22, 1941 the Gestapo arrived in Stavishche and on August 25, 1941 two Gestapo men came to me at the county administration [building] and told me, via the translator of the county administration Shira, to have a pit dug in the forest and also to provide a man who would show them a suitable place for this pit. I sent the Gestapo men, together with my translator Shira, to the chief of the county [auxiliary] police Isayevich. After about 10 minutes Isayevich and the translator Shira, together with the Gestapo men, found a suitable place for the pit in the Revukha Forest. Isayevich reported to me that he assigned the digging of the pit to the elder of the Roskoshnoye village…In October [sic] Isayevich informed me that the shooting of the Jews was about to take place and that he was ordered by the Gestapo [men] to gather all the Jewish men with axes and saws - under the pretext of sending them to work in the forest. On the same day Isayevich summoned the Jew Ostrovskiy, who previously had been appointed by Isayevich to be the elder of the local Jewish population, and told him to come to the police [station], together with men, supposedly to be sent to work in the forest, as I have already mentioned. Only those [Jewish] men who lived in the village of Stavishche were murdered at that time…14 [sic] Jewish men were living in the village of Stavishche. They came to the police [station] and subsequently were taken under guard to the Revukha Forest and shot there. According to what was told to me by the [auxiliary] policeman Anton Novolnitskiy, the Jews were shot by Gestapo men….

…Two weeks after they occupied the town [of Stavishche], the Germans collected all the Jewish men - 60 in number - supposedly for work. They were taken to the Revukha Forest, two kilometers away [from the town], forced to dig a pit, and then all of them were shot there. After some time all the Jewish women and children were collected, supposedly to be evacuated, and were shot at the same place. They were taken to the pit [in groups] of 4, and were shot with pistols. The nursing infants were thrown into the pit alive…