Murder story of Tighina Jews at the Tighina Fortress

On June 22 [sic], 1941 Romanian troops entered Bender [Tighina]. My grandmother Heika Kogan (née Imes), the wife of Hersh Kogan, together with her grandchild Lyova and his wife, were preparing – as were most of the town's residents – to get on a train that was supposed to take all the town's residents who wanted to go [eastwards], to evacuate to the inner parts of Russia [the USSR]. When they reached the train… Lyova's wife [suddenly] recalled that she had forgotten some item at home; she assumed [her family members] that she would have enough time to return home, to take the above-mentioned item, to return quickly, and to get onto the departing train. My grandmother said that she wouldn't travel alone and would wait for the return of Lyova and his wife. But to their misfortune the train had left before they reached the place [i.e. train station] and they were left under Romanian occupation, after the Nazis had already entered Bender. The Romanian Fascists first took the old Jews of the town to the [Bender] fortress. My grandmother dragged herself after the others, barefooted, for the whole 6 kilometers. When they reached the fortress, it [a German SS unit] shot all the old people, including Shmuel Imes, and buried them in a mass-grave. Afterward the rest of the Jews were collected and killed [at the same site]; they were buried next to the other victims. This valley of death near the fortress was Bender's Babi Yar.