Murder story of Vasilkov Jews in the Pokrovskoye Cemetery Area

In 2009, during my expedition, within the framework of the program "Memory," I compiled an account of it (the Holocaust as carried out in Vasilkov). The first shootings of the Jews were carried out in the early September 1941, when 105 people were murdered. This, apparently, took place in the Kovalivka Ravine on the outskirts of town. Later, the remaining Jews were collected from all over the county (they numbered more than 800) and, in the spring of 1942, in the course of 4-5 days, they were shot in two places: the same Kovalevka ravine and a ravine near the Pokrovskoye cemetery…. Olena Panashenko, who was born in 1933 in Vasilkov, testified: The Jews shot in the ravine near the Pokrovskoye cemetery were later buried in a mass grave at the Memorial of Glory… during the [Great] Patriotic [War] here were buried the Jews and the fighters who were killed during the liberation of Vasilkov were also buried there. All the Jews who were stiil alive after the shootings in the Kovalevka Ravine were taken to the covered market….The town resident Maria Tikhonovna Urdenko saw the Jews being driven in several trucks, under guard, along May 1st Street. They screamed a lot and cried out in protest and, then, they were taken off the trucks and shot to death.