Murder Story of Markhlevsk Jews at the Ivanovka Forest Tract

Several days before the shooting, all the young people were forced into a barn next to the German police headquarters. They were kept there without water or food…. On September 12, 1941, all the young people of Dovbysh were taken out of the barn and led, under a reinforced guard (with machine guns), to the former market area, near the forest. Then, in small groups, they were taken deep into the forest, toward pits [mass graves] that had been dug in advance. There, they were forced to strip, and then shot at short range. In order to cover the sounds of gunfire in the forest, during the shooting a German wind ensemble played in the market square, where the rest of the Germans were…. The second group of Jews from Dovbysh was imprisoned separately from the younger group. On November 12, 1941, it [the second group] was taken to the same forest in the vicinity of Dovbysh. All of them were forced to take off all their clothes, and shot point blank. In this group, there were also women with babies and young children. According to witness accounts, one woman [the wife of the village barber] was taken to the shooting by cart, and she gave birth on the way. She was shot, and her baby was thrown into the pit with the shooting victims…. Here is a partial list of the young people from Dovbysh who perished in 1941 [relatives of I. M. Melamed] Yankel Gershovich Melamed, born in 1925 in the village of Rogachev; his mother was named Sarah, and his father was named Gersh; Izya Shmilykovich Kachka, born in 1925 in the village of Osyche; his mother was Gitl, and his father was named Shmilyk; Lenya Shmilykovich Kachka, born in 1927 in the village of Osychne; Brushla Moyshevna Melamed; Three children of Khuna Kachka, three children of Shmilyk Kachka, and two children of Chaya Tkach.

My mother told me the following. It was in the month of September. We knew that the Jews were being held in the garage and in the basement of the china factory office. We heard the noise and the commotion. We heard the crying: the Jews were being taken along Sportivnaya Street. They were passing our house. They were familiar: they were our neighbors. There was one Jewish woman, a neighbor, with her two girls, on a cart, and there were five or six policemen and a German soldier with a dog. Another [non-Jewish] woman, a neighbor, was standing there with her children. She took one of the Jewish girls and included her among her own children. The policemen did not see this, and the German soldier seemed not to care about it. They were taken to the Skotoboynya [slaughterhouse] Ravine. The police dug two trenches and put two boards over them. They ordered the Jews to undress, and they did so. They ordered all the clothes to be put onto the carts, and they were.… My mother heard bursts of submachine-gun fire. The Jews stepped onto the boards; they [the killers] shot them, and the Jews fell into the trench. My mother could not bear this and ran home. After an hour, or an hour and a half, everything became quiet. They covered the pit with earth and left. The graves heaved and shook for two more days. Perhaps if someone had helped them, people would have survived. My mother said that there were as many as one hundred Jews there. This was in September 1941....There were many Jews from Bilki, Natalya (a village), and Ivanovka. The only burial place is in Dovbysh [sic].