Murder story of Bălți Jews in the Cattle Pasture in the Bălți Area

From the first days after the entry of Romanian troops into the town of Bǎlți, mass shootings of the Jewish residents [of the town] began. Thus, in July 1941, I don't remember the exact date, I was an eyewitness of the shooting of Jewish Soviet civilians … on the far side of the Chișinău Bridge. On the street near my house they [Romanian troops] were driving a cart full of about 10 people who had been shot to death – women, elderly and men, but among whom there was one woman was still alive and making some sounds. All of them were taken to a large pit that was located about 80-100 meters from my house, and they were thrown into the pit. Afterward, the murderers went back … [to the town], there were three of them – one Romanian corporal, I don't know his last name, and two soldiers, who began searching the houses for Jewish civilians. As a result, they collected … about 15 people, [mainly] women and infants, there were 8 adult women, the rest were teenagers and [little] children. The murderers took all those who had been collected to our house and began to take from them valuables, money, [and other] worthwhile items, and then they took them toward the pit, where they [Romanian soldiers] shot all of them to death. When I was in my apartment [house], I heard shots ringing out. When they [the Romanian troops] had finished shooting the women and children, in one house they found an old woman of 80 years old, and brought her to the gates [of my house]. A Romanian corporal shot her twice. In that way they [the Romanian troops] shot to death as many as 25 people, [all of them] innocent Soviet civilians. …

9. the burial place of 40 [Jewish] people was found across the Chișinău Bridge, in a cattle pasture. … Interview with Iurii Rashkovan, USC Shoah Foundation Institute, YVA O.93/17889

... From the first days of the entry of Romanian troops into the town of Bǎlți, approximately at the beginning of July 1941, mass shootings of the Jewish residents took place throughout the town. I was personally an eyewitness to a brutal shooting that was carried out at the cattle pasture [located] across the Chișinău Bridge. A Romanian corporal, whose last name I don't know, was in charge of this shooting. In front of my eyes this corporal and another two [Romanian] soldiers took to the shooting site more than 15 Jews, residents of the town of Bǎlți, among them women and children and, before the shooting, they [the victims] were robbed of their money, portable items, and valuables, while some of the women and young girls had their fingers with gold rings cut off with knives. Then all [the victims] were forced into [one] row with their face toward the pit that had previously been dug for an anti-aircraft installation, and then they [the Romanian troops] shot them with rifles in the back or head, and then proceeded in an disorderly manner to throw them [the bodies] into the pit. Of those who had been shot and were already in the pit, only one girl remained alive. When she emerged from under the bodies, she was covered with blood all over her body. Subsequently, this girl was sent by the Romanians to an unknown destination. I don't know the last names of those shot to death since they were from the town center. Besides them, several Soviet civilians who had been shot to death were taken with them [other victims] on carts [to the murder site] and were thrown into the pit....