Murder story of Baranovka Jews in the Sosnina Ravine

The third operation took place in the fall of 1941. All the mothers were murdered, while their children were left to fend for themselves. We – I, my Mom, and my brother – hid in the attic. When it was all over, we left our shelter and learned that the wife of our Dad's cousin, Shlema Shvartsman – who had committed suicide out of despair – was dead, leaving three orphans behind. The eldest was 5 years old; the girl Bronya was 3 years old, and the youngest, Romochka, was a baby several months old. We took the children in….

… On January 5, 1942, my mother came back from the camp [the work camp in Novograd Volynskiy].… At about midday, she went to our neighbor to inform her that her husband was still alive and in the same camp. Immediately afterward, my friend came over to me with her mother and told me that another pogrom – apparently, the final one – was imminent. The Germans forced everyone out of their homes. The children were tossed onto carts, one on top of the other. The crowd of elderly people and women were forced to go together… The Germans and policemen raided all the houses in search of Jews.… On the outskirts of Baranovka, where the previous shooting had taken place, I saw a huge, barely covered pit containing the bodies of women, children, and elderly people. Later, some witnesses told me that they [the victims] had been forced to strip naked in the dead of winter. The children were thrown into the bottom of the pit; then the adults were shot, and fell on top of them. The screams and moans of the unfortunate ones could be heard from far away.