Murder Story of Poczajów Nowy Jews at the Poczajów Jewish Cemetery

… During exhumation and the discovery of the bodies in the second mass grave located at the Jewish cemetery it was found that the bodies of the shooting victims were lying in disorder [but] that the bodies had not completely decomposed. [Therefore,] women, men, and teenagers could be easily recognized. There were approximately 150 bodies in the grave. In the third [mass grave] there were [found] 80 [bodies]. According to the information of [i.e., available to the] investigative authorities, one could see the traces of gunshot damage on all the bodies…. The clothing [of the victims] was missing. During the opening of the above-mentioned … mass graves we found bodies of children age 10 to 15 that had no [evidence of] shooting damage. According to the opinion of [our] medical experts … the children were thrown into the pit alive, and [their] death was the result of suffocation due to their being buried alive in the mass grave.…

… Some Jews [i.e. inmates of the ghetto] were left alive by the Germans [after the mass killing operation of Poczajów's Jews] in order to carry out roadwork, while some [others] whom the [Ukrainian auxiliary] police had found [hiding] in different places were sentenced to death and handed over to the Germans; the Germans [in turn] ordered those civilians to dig pits at the Jewish cemetery [located] on the outskirts of Poczajów and then they [Germans] shot [them] to death on the spot. Five such pits were found [by the ChGK commission] at the [Jewish] cemetery and one pit outside the cemetery, in which, according to the testimonies of the local residents, as many as 500 [Jewish] men, women, elderly people, and children were shot to death. …

… Several days afterward that [the mass murder of Poczajów's Jews in August 1942], they [Germans] were again hunting [for the hiding Jews], collecting them in groups and shooting them to death, this time at the Jewish cemetery. The last group of 45 [Jews], who had been kept [alive until then] to be used as a working brigade for different [kinds] of hard work. Probably in the month of October, I don't remember the exact date, at dawn we heard the rattling of the machine-gun fire, which woke us (my homestead was located near the Jewish cemetery) and I saw through the window a group of people at which the Germans and [Ukrainian auxiliary] policemen were screaming something, while they were shooting [the victims, who] were falling into the pit. Some entered the pit by themselves and were shot to deat there. I did not come out [of the pit] until they [Germans] left [the murder site]; some of them had remained to cover [the mass graves with earth]….

...In August 1942, I don't remember the exact date, during the harvesting of the bread [i.e. wheat], I was working in a field about 50 meters from the Jewish cemetery. Approximately at 12 noon I saw a group of about 150 people moving forward, under the guard of German soldiers and [Ukrainian auxiliary] police. When they came closer, I noticed that they were Jews. They were taken [by the Germans] to the cemetery, where there had been prepared a pit that had been prepared there. These people were surrounded in the cemetery, while we were forced to leave the field [where we were harvesting]. I had not moved far [from the murder site] when the command "get undressed" was heard in Ukrainian and also something in German. I moved further away and hid in order not to be noticed. Every five minutes I tried to see what would happen. I again heard some command and, naked, those people were taken [n groups of three toward the pit. [Then] the rattling of machine-guns was heard. As a result, the people began falling onto the ground or into the pit, I did not look closely. Afterward, one could hear [the following:] terrible shouting, moaning, commands in German, and, machine-gun fire, … After that I was gripped by fear and the aweful sight made a terrible impression on me. Soon I rushed away from there, in the direction of the village of Novyi Tarazh, located not far from that place. When I came home, I could still heart shots and shouting. I don't know what happened after that but, according to the rumors, eyewitnesses said that the Germans shot to death more than 200 people – men, women, teenagers and children.…