Murder Story of Dubno Jews at the Surmicze Airfield

The murder operation of the 26th and 27th of May [1942] was carried out as follows: on the evening of the same day the Jewish police of the ghetto was ordered to separate the professionals [skilled] and other Jews, and not to leave among the professionals any person who did not have a work certificate. At midnight three shots were fired at the [main] gate of the ghetto. German SS men broke into the ghetto together with several hundred German [auxiliary] policemen. All of them were wearing steel helmets and the Germans also had dogs with them. They began to drive the Jews out of their homes and beat mercilessly all of those who were leaving their houses. Women fainted when they saw their infants being smashed or hacked to pieces by the murderers. Handicapped, sick, and old people were shot to death on the spot. Many jumped into the Ikwa River and drowned. Khaya Fainblitt from Rybnaia Street, who had been barren for 14 years and finally gave birth to her first born son at the time of the German entry [into Dubno], took her baby and drowned him in a barrel of water, screaming: [in Yiddish] … "I With my own eyes I have to see the death of my ... son!" Afterward, she took poison -- to the amusement of these barbarians…. The poor persecuted [Jews] were collected at the square near the entrance to the ghetto. Deathly silence prevailed there [at the square], occasionally interrupted by the trucks that arrived to take away the victims and the terrible crying that burst out. The trucks "swallowed" the victims and took them to the killing site. Since there were not enough trucks, they [the Germans] forced the … women and children [to go on foot] to the airfield near the Surmicz station. One group of those who was about to be killed was composed of 800 school-age children. The children, who were dressed nicely, were put into in rows of four at the beginning of the procession, and lilac bouquets were given to them [to hold]. Thus, during the most beautiful month of the year, the month of May, those little ones were going their own funeral with bouquets of flowers in their hands. They were followed by Germans, Ukrainians [auxiliary policemen], and German women with dogs, who would sometimes release the dogs on the children to tear them to pieces. Those were German women and mothers, who had their own children at home…. The [Jewish] women and children were forced to their knees and made to cross their hands on the napes of their necks and bend down towards the pit. In a corner near the pit, with his legs dangling in the pit and with a cigarette between his lips, a German man was sitting, holding a machine-gun. Every fews minutes the machine-gun rattled and [another] 20 people fell into the pit. Since this shooting was not enough, another shooting followed. Many peopled suffocated from the pressure of the bodies [above them].… When the pit was filled, it was covered with chlorine and sealed. Blood streamed and bubbled up above the ashes that covered the pit.… The murder operation lasted until May 27….