Murder Story of Yanovichi Jews in Zaytsevo

…After about a month of torment, in September 1941, over the course of a single day all the women and children were taken away from this fence [the ghetto] in cars, to be shot and buried alive in an antitank trench near the town of Zaytsevo. Doctor Lifshchits, his wife, and his grandson were among the victims. All the women, without exception, were of Jewish origin.

…In September 1941, I do not remember the exact date, I was making hay for my cow, while a fellow townsman, Ulyan Yegorovich Petrov, was plowing the soil not far from me. On that day, he and I witnessed the German Fascist occupiers shooting the residents of the town of Yanovichi in an antitank trench between the towns of Zaytsevo and Leshchevo. In the morning, sixteen girls of Jewish origin were taken to the antitank trench in a truck, which was followed by a second truck carrying up to 15 German soldiers and officers, all of them sporting a red armband on their left arm. As the truck was passing us by, I asked the girls where they were going. One of the girls, whom I did not recognize, replied: "To Demidov, to harvest cucumbers," and she waved her white handkerchief to us. After driving on for about 200 meters, the Germans halted the trucks near some bushes. Each German soldier then seized a girl, and they took them into the bushes not far from the trench. First, there was silence, and then we heard the girls yelling and screaming. Their yells and screams did not last long. The German soldiers dragged the girls out of the bushes, holding some of them by the hair, clothes, or sleeves, and forced them into the antitank trench. They [the Germans] threw them all into the pit and shot them with rifles. Petrov and I assumed that the German soldiers and officers had first raped all the girls, and then shot them. At that time, two additional trucks, fully loaded with women of Jewish origin, arrived at the antitank trench. There were up to 30 women in each of them. They were all dragged down from the trucks and pushed into the trench, where they were shot. Then, there followed 14 more trucks in quick succession, all loaded with women, transporting [the victims] to the pit to be shot. Some of them were pushed into the pit while still alive, and were then covered with soil. When those vehicles had departed, two more trucks arrived. These were loaded with children, ranging from infants to 8-14-year-olds. The children were tossed from the trucks straight into the pit, and were buried there. There were at least 100 children on those trucks. Afterward, three additional groups were brought to the antitank trench on foot. These included women, men, and elderly people. There were at least three hundred individuals in each group. All of them were either shot or thrown into the pit while still alive, and then buried. Thus did the German-Fascist occupiers shoot or bury alive all the girls, women, men, and elderly people – 1,600 completely innocent individuals – on that day. The bodies filled seven large pits in the antitank trench. Petrov and I could clearly observe the entire brutal massacre perpetrated by the German authorities, since we stood on a hill overlooking those trenches at a distance of about two hundred meters.… When the German soldiers and officers had left the antitank trench, Petrov and I approached the pits and saw that they were filled with the bodies of the innocent, peaceful people, and overflowing with their blood.