Murder Story of Uman Jews at the Pioneers Palace in Uman

…The women and children -- as many as three thousand of them -- were driven into the heated cellar, where every door and opening was tightly sealed. Many were suffocated. The corpses gave off an awful stench. And it was only when the smell began to spread throughout the prison that the Germans opened the door. During those several days I did not go away from the fence. I saw wagons loaded down with naked bodies coming out of the prison. These were the women and children who had suffocated to death. The Germans shamelessly brought out these corpses in their disorderly heaps in broad daylight. I saw among them the curly heads of three of my little first cousins…

… late in the evening I saw three girls who were also going somewhere; I knew one of them, and so I joined them. They were returning from work at a hospital, and they had passes [allowing them to move around] in the evening. However, we ran into a policeman. The girls showed him their passes. I moved aside, and he noticed this, called me over to him, and kicked [me] hard. He took their passes from them [the girls] and took all [of us] under guard to the cellar of the Pioneer Palace, which they had turned into a death chamber. He took [us] to where some German-Fascists were standing; they opened the cellar door and started to push us inside. Terrible cries were heard from there, people were standing up and lying down. We were pushed inside and started to make our way forward. It was dark in the cellar, and we could not see where to go. One girl pulled me after her. I felt faint but, continuing to disturb everyone, we pushed further into the cellar. The horror was indescribable: the adults and the children were crying, weeping, suffocating from gas, [suffering from] the overcrowding and fear. Many fell silent forever. The night passed in such horror that it seemed that all was over. Suddenly the doors opened. The sunlight blinded us, and we heard the shouts of the Fascists, who ordered us out of the cellar. At that moment I did not believe that I was still alive. Dead bodies were strewn all around. There were very few people still alive. A girl was lying nearby, covered with dead bodies. Only her head and one hand were still alive [moving]. We tried to free her, but the Fascists shouted and beat us, while finishing off such half-dead, helpless people with whatever came to hand. Thousands of people had been herded into this cellar and there were no more than 40-45 people left [alive] there, including me and a girl of 12, Dvoyra Isruleybovna Shvets…

…The next day, September 19 [1941] was unusual in that only a few people were taken to work, only those digging a trench on the city's outskirts…In the afternoon [our] neighbor Rosenfeld, about 45 years old, asked my mother to cook something on his stove, [as his] wife and two daughters had been taken to work. I entered his house with her [the author's mother]. At that time [we] saw Germans and several policemen in the courtyard (it was a large courtyard with about 10 dilapidated apartments). The neighbor hid in the attic (since the [Jewish] men were being hunted down, they disappeared) while I stayed in the apartment with my mother. A German and several policemen came in and started to search the apartment for more people. We were driven out into the courtyard, where there were already people from the other hovels and, after being added to others in the crowd and surrounded by Germans and many policemen, we were taken not far away, to the cellar of the former Pioneer Palace. There were already many people in the cellar. We (about 20 people) were pushed into it with difficulty. After we were pushed in, the door to the cellar could only be opened with great effort so that policemen broke a (small) window in the cellar and, from time to time, pushed people through it onto the heads of those inside. The children were the first to suffocate; their mothers were going out of their minds and crying. I passed out and regained consciousness when the door started to open (I was near it). A German soldier and two policemen stood in the doorway with pistols pointed at the people, trying to shout the people down and threatening them with their weapons. Temporarily it became a bit quieter, and we heard someone asking whether there were any Ukrainians among us. My mother pushed me forward; I said that I was [Ukrainian] but my mother was Jewish. The German did not understand, but the policemen let me out. Several people whose (Ukrainian) relatives had disappeared stood by the cellar searching for them. It was dark, someone called to me and said that one [Ukrainian] had been found. I started to run along the dark, deserted street…

…The following fact became known: several hundred Jews were literally squeezed one on top of the other into a deep and dark cellar of Uman's Pioneer Palace. Among those thrown in there were many children, women, and elderly people. The cellar was sealed tight and all of them, it became known later, about 500 people, suffocated, starved to death, perished from thirst, or from the incredible overcrowding…

…About two weeks after the hanging of the doctors, the first pogrom against the Jews…was carried out. The Jews were caught and beaten on the streets or in their homes; then they were forced into the cellar of the former Pioneer Palace in the town center on Lenin Street (now Canteen No. 16 is located there). The cellar was packed, mainly with women, children, and elderly people, then gas was piped in and all the people suffocated to death. It was said that there were 1,000 people there, but no precise figure is available…