Murder story of Demidowka Jews in the Griner Grove

On 21 Tishrei [i.e. October 2]…, 1942, the Jews were expelled from their houses [in the ghetto] and assembled under the open sky near the house of the… Miler family. Those collected, from infants to the elderly, were sitting or lying on the ground for seven days and nights, with the only provision [given to them] being water, and even [this] was very limited. At that time, the [local] Ukrainian residents were digging a murder pit near the Griner grove. For seven days…, they [the Jews] were sitting crowded, all of them fellow sufferers…, waiting for their day of judgment [i.e., murder]. Seven days of crying, of praying together with the pious rabbi Alperin, seven days of shouting to the height of the heavens, and [all this] in vain. In the morning of the 27th of Tishrei [i.e. October 8]…, the Jews were forced to run by being beaten; they were abused when they were [already] half dead – broken in body and in soul, and indifferent to their fate. All of them were loaded onto trucks and taken to the murder pit. David Grinberg, about thirty years old, jumped off a truck and tried to escape, but was shot dead on the spot. Several hours after the operation – this murder operation, when the killers moved away to drink and fill their bellies, leaving for a short while – the murder pit was still uncovered. One woman who had not been killed, Sorke Katz, emerged from the pit that was filled with the dead and the dying. One Ukrainian [policeman] among the murderers noticed her from a distance, ran up to her, threw her down, and crushed her head with his boot. Thus, it turned out that, as fate determined, the historic Griner grove, which had witnessed the joy and happiness of young people for two generations… a grove that used to be beloved by its visitors, became the mute and last witness of the murder of some of those who came there [not of their own free will]. This grove swallowed forever the voices of pain and rage of those murdered in the murder pit [located] there.…