Murder story of Bălți Jews in the Flǎmînda Quarry

… On July 15, at 5 p.m. the members of the [Jewish] committee were taken to the headquarters of the German [military] police, where Captain Prast demanded a list of 20 Jewish Communists in order to execute them. The monster [i.e. Prast] added that if such a list was not provided, a similar number of Jews would be executed, headed by the members of the committee, who would be executed first. Despite the mortal danger that faced them, the committee hesitated, and [finaly] the head of the committee [i.e. Bernard Walter] informed Captain Prast of their refusal to be involved in such a despicable act. [As a result] all the members of the committee were immediately arrested, after being searched [for valuables] and robbed of all their possessions. [This robbery] was carried out since, due to their uncertainty about what might happen to them at any minute, all the Jews [of the town] had brought to them [the members of the committee] all the valuables they had. They [committee members] were taken in a line, one by one, guarded by German policemen, to the camp [ghetto located] at the [former] Moldova Bank. There they were taken under guard, before the terrified eyes of their family members, to the fence at the far end of the yard. The other Jews there looked with pain and helplessness as those who might have been their only hope were taken to their grave. Near the camp fence the members of the committee were kept for half an hour, [during which time] they were tortured, abused [by the Nazis] and photographed by the German soldiers who had been assigned to guard them. Later another 44 Jews, out of the group of 150 [Jews] who had been held hostage in the cellar of the building [apparently the former Moldova Bank building], were [also] taken [to the ghetto fence] and all of them were loaded onto two trucks. Until they exited the gate [of the ghetto], the other desperate people [i.e. ghetto inmates] accompanied them. The women tore out their hair while crying bitterly and falling at the feet of their dear ones, assuming that they were seeing them for the last time. Approximately at 8 p.m. the trucks with the Jews arrived in Slobozia [on the outskirts of] Bǎlți, at the place called Flaminda, where the experimental agricultural bureau of Bǎlți, along with a quarry, was located. The Jews were divided into groups of 15 and were ordered to dig pits for their own [mass] grave. They were given shovels that had been brought especially for this purpose. After each pit was finished, each group that had finished digging its pit was ordered to lie face-down [in it] and each person in the group then received a bullet in the back of his head. While some of them died instantly, others did not die immediately and, therefore, begged the murderers to shoot them a second time. The murder victims were covered over with earth by the groups that had not yet been shot. The last group was buried by the murderers. Only Bernard Walter, the head of the committee, survived the slaughter, since Walter benefitted from his friendship with many among the Romanians [living] in Bǎți. He survived due to the determination and care of the head of the Romanian police [Gendarmerie] Dumitru Agapie, who succeeded in obtaining a reprieve for Walter from Captain [von] Prast. That is how he [Dumitru Agapie] managed to spare the victim [Bernard Walter] from the prepared pit only a couple of minutes before he was going to be shot to death.…