Murder Story of Sokolov Jews at the Pine Tree Plantation in Sokolov

Soon after the war began, in June or July 1941, when the weather was warm, after the thunder storm numerous high- sided trucks with civilian people were going along the road from Zhitomir. There were several covered trucks and very much German military staff riding motorcycles. Residents of our village Kornoy [sic] said that the Germans took the Jews from Sokoliv [sic] village of Chervonoarmeysk [sic] county, Zhitomir district, to the shooting. The village Sokolov was purely Jewish one.... We, the teenagers, ran after the trucks. In a newly planted pinetum there was a trench dug by a tractor in the sandy ground. It was 5 meters wide and above 40 meters long. By the command "get down" all the brought Jews that got down from the high-sided trucks. They were old people, numerous women, teenagers and children. There were no men around them. Although the Sokolov Jews could not help knowing that the Jews of Zhitomir and Novograd [Volynskiy] had been already liquidated they still thought they would remain alive as all of them had their bundles across the shoulders and even the young children held bundles in their hands. When they saw the prepared pit they began to cry, to say farewell to the children, to shout in such a horrible way the one could not stand listening to it. Only one heavy browed, grey haired old man with a stick stood and watched everything in silence. We were in the same newly planted pinetum, about 50 meters from there. We got frightened to be noticed and hid ourselves. The adults still holding their bundles in the hands, after the children were taken away from them, were put in a row in front of the trench facing it. They were told to bend towards the pit, with their heads down, and were shot at the back. There were no priests, there were no rites prior to the death. Only an interpreter was present. The children were taken away from their mothers. They were made to walk or taken to a covered truck, a box was applied to their temple and murdered with electric shock. If the teenagers ran away the Soviet POWs following the Germans' order caught them and dragged them back to the covered truck. I do not know whether the children's corpses were put into the truck or were thrown into the trench as we, being frightened, ran away. We thought they would mistake us for the Jewish children that escaped [from the shooting site] and would drag us to death as well. We ran away hiding and hear the terrible shout and shooting. The women shouted especially horribly "vey, vey". The shooting sounds and the echo were heard all over the forest. We ran up hill and down the dale to a nearby village Noviny because there was a road to Zhitomir going through our village Kurnoye and we were afraid that the Germans would catch us up on the road by trucks. On the following day shepherds said that the Germans did not put the guard to the trench, they may have to be afraid of partisans…. Many of the wounded Jews, the old people, the women and the teenagers got out of the pit and ran away to the villages Romanovka and Yablonets. After several weeks people said they went into hiding there and they lived at some people's in hiding. Our mothers forbade us [to go there] and we did not go to the young pinetum and did not see the trench packed with the people like sardines. But people said the pit still moved for a long time, those who remained alive tried but did not manage to get out.… People said the Germans hanged Jews and those Ukrainians who rescued them if other Ukrainians gave them away....