Murder Story of Voroshilovsk Jews at the Voroshilovsk Old Cemetery (Gas Vans)

... In July 1942 Einsatzgruppe D followed the fighting troops into the Caucasus. The staff with the suspect Kehrer was stationed in Stavropol (Voroshilovsk). At first task force 12 was used in Stavropol. A few days after the arrival of the Einsatzgruppe in Stavropol, the Jews who were living in Stavropol were ordered on posted notices to report [to the occupying authorites]. The Jews who showed up at the meeting point were arrested and then shot to death. …… Also in Stavropol the Jews who had not been caught and killed in the first opertion but were caught later were held in the prison that was established by Einsatzgruppe D. It [the prison] was “cleaned out” from time to time by using gas vans [to murder the prisoners]....

… Furthermore, the use of the gas van for killing in Simferopol and Stavropol was cruel. After the victims realized that the gas fumes were going to kill them, it took up to 15 minutes, depending on the health of each person, until his or her death by suffocation. During that time the victims suffered not only physical pain but also mental suffering when they saw the other people, often their relatives, dying, and knowing that they themselves were going to die very soon....

... In July 1942 Einsatzgruppe D started to advance into the Caucasus. The defendant Kehrer and his Caucasus Unit was serving there. Also in Stavropol [Voroshilovsk] some Jews, who were not registered, and therefore were not killed during the first registration, were held in a prison that was established by Einsatzgruppe D and was “cleaned out” from time to time. On two days between August and December 1942 the suspect Kehrer ordered the killings of prisoners by the use of gas vans. Following the orders of the suspect, at least 30 Jewish men, women, and children were killed in two separate murders: those who resisted [entering the vans] were struck with rifle butts, thrown into the gas vans, and murdered with the exhaust fumes from the engines. Also in this case, it took several minutes until the screams of the locked in, desperate victims became silent and their knocking on the sides [of the vans] ceased. Afterward, the gas vans drove away with the bodies....