Murder story of Surazh Vitebskiy Jews at the Former Flax Factory in Surazh Vitebskiy

On August 2, 1941 I was in Surazh town. Since the morning of that day the local population had been talking that a German punitive military unit would arrive at the town. At about 11-12 o'clock in the afternoon out town was indeed rounded up by German soldiers armed with machine guns and sub machine guns. 3-5 soldiers entered each house and when they found the Jewish population they took them [the Jews] out to the street and in brought them in a column of 3-4 people in each row to the town printing house. There at the square the Jewish men were forced to lie on the ground with their faces down. The women with the children were forced to sit down on the ground. When all the Jewish population was collected this way, and the Germans collected up to 600 people that day, they [the Jews] were put in a column for the second time and were taken in the direction of the flax factory. In a ravine three kilometers from the town, the pits that had been prepared in advance they started to shoot them and to murder with grenades. The women and the children were thrown into the pits half dead. The men were forced to watch this bloody massacre. Those who turned the head away, unwilling to watch it, was immediately beaten with whips. As soon as the women and the children were liquidated the Germans began to murder the men near the same pits. The Germans threw the most of the men, badly wounded, into the pits. The Germans finished their bloody massacre at around 10-11 p.m. Then after they hardly covered the pits with the soil they left in the unknown direction.