Murder story of Calarasi Jews in the Vatamaneasa Forest

… On November 3, 1944 those of us who comprised the [ChGK] committee carried out an examination of the discovered and opened mass grave, located about two and one half kilometers from … Cǎlǎraşi… at the north-western edge of the Vatamaneasa Forest. During [this process] we learned and ascertained the following: 130 bodies were exhumed from the mass grave, among them were 90 [bodies of] men and 40 of women. The bodies in the grave were thrown in a disorderly manner in four or more layers, [this was established] since the mass grave was almost entirely filled, and the layer of earth that covered the bodies was no more than 50 centimeters in thickness. Most of the bodies were preserved. The clothing [of the victims] was [also] preserved. [However,] some of the bodies were in a state of total decomposition…. As for the age [of the victims,] judging by height, teeth… the bodies can be classified as follows: 1. Nursing infants - 1 2. Children up to 3 – 3 3. Children up to 5 – 5 4. Children between 5 and 10 – 3 5. Children between 10 and 15 – 4 6. Youngsters between 15 and 25 – 20 7. Adults between 25 and 60 – 65 8. Elderly people between 60 and 80 – 29 Except for 12 bodies, the rest of the bodies had their hands and legs tied with wire or rope in groups of 2-4 people, the elderly and children [were tied] together. With the bodies were found children's shoes and toys.… During the examination of the corpses it was found that: a. 17 bodies had traces of weapons fired at the skull – [i.e.] in the forehead and temple areas. b. 19 bodies were wounded in the breast – heart area. c. The skulls of 21 bodies were smashed. d. 32 bodies had wounds in their limbs. e. 29 bodies had wounds in the belly. … Based on what has been stated above, we came to the conclusion that the murders were carried out: 1. with firearms at point-blank range. 2. with [blows from] blunt weapons to the head. 3. By the burial [alive] of the wounded. 4. By throwing [unwounded victims] into the pit and burying [them] alive. Judging by the signs of decomposition, the killing and burying [of the victims] were carried out approximately three years ago – [i.e.] at the end of August or in early September 1941. The eyewitnesses, residents of Cǎlǎraşi village, who were questioned by [the ChGK] committee, provided the following evidence: The eyewitness Stepan Zhuravel, who was born in 1889, …in the town of Cǎlǎraşi … testified as follows: "I personally know [the facts regarding the murder operation] as follows – on August 1, 1941 I was arrested by the Romanian Gendarmerie as a [former] member of the [Soviet] rural council and I was held in the cellar of the building of the Romanian [Gendarmerie] section and post [the Gendarmerie section had under its jurisdiction a number of posts, in this case the section and post were located in the same building]. On the third day after my arrest, 30 Jews were put into the cellar, where I was being held and, then, other [Jews] were added, so that by the end of the day there were approximately 80 people there. Many of them I knew well by their faces, and some I knew by their last names, for example: Khil Volfovich, his wife Haika, Gershka Sudik and his wife, Haim Kroiter, Gershka Silskyi, Germanskyi, Souzskyi – an orphan boy 4 years old, Itsik Krivonisk, Motilevich, Sura Kitsan, …. [among them] there was one woman with a nursing baby – I don't know … her last name. They were held in the cellar for three days. They were deprived of food and water; they were starved…. On the first night the Gendarmerie men called out, i.e. took the daughter of Blinder and a daughter of Gemanskyi, whom they raped. Afterward, at 2 or 3 a.m. they [girls] were thrown back into the cellar. After three days, at about 11 a.m. or 12 noon the Gendarmerie men began to take them [Jews] in pairs out of the cellar, tying with rope one person's arm to the other's and, in fours, they wer put onto carts and taken away. When they [the Jews] were being taken away, they asked the Gendarmerie men where they were being taken. The Gendarmerie men replied: "We are taking you to an old section" [of town] but, in fact, they [all] were taken to be annihilated. This I learned from the resident [of Cǎlǎraşi] Georgyi Dumitriu, who had also been arrested and was held together with me in the cellar. At that time he was taken, by mistake, together with the Jews to be annihilated, but then he was brought back, and that is how he could tell me that the Jews had been taken to the forest to be annihilated." …

The eyewitness Nikandr Tetu, who was born in 1901 in Cǎlǎraşi, … testified as follows: "At the beginning of the war in August 1941, on the second day of the German-Romanian occupation of the town of Cǎlǎraşi I was called [to appear] at the post of the Gendarmerie, and the chief of the post Nikolai Şeptiban ordered me to serve as a patrol policeman for the Gendarmerie and right away he assigned to me 18 people…. I was appointed head [of this group of people] and I personally was given the responsibility from the chief of the post of the Gendarmerie to, by evening, have a pit dug that would be 8 meters long, 4 meters wide, and 2 meters deep in the Vatamaneasa Forest, and I carried out this [assignment]. After the pit had been dug, I reported this to the Gendarmerie. After that the chief of the [Gendarmerie] post ordered that ten shovels be collected and, together with another Gendarmerie man, whose last name I do not know, we collected the ten shovels from the village, and then I went to show the Gendarmerie man where the pit had been dug. After that he and I went to my place to sleep. Approximately at 3 a.m., 11 carts, carrying Jews tied together – men, women, and children of all ages --with four, seven, or eight people on each cart. I don't know exactly how many they were, but people said there there were about 130 people in all. Before they [the carts with the Jews] arrived at my place that night, the chief [of the Gendarmerie post] told me that when they [the Gendarmerie men] whistled, I should go out [to them]. And that is what happened. I went out and distributed the shovels. At that time I noticed that on the carts [were sitting] the [following] tied up Jews [namely] Khaim Pustynnik, Khil Valdgovich, and Benzion Kalyuskin, who asked me: "Did you hear that a pit has been dug for us?". I replied that, in fact, a pit had been dug on the edge of the Vatamaneasa Forest. Then Kalyuskin asked me to tell his wife Anna Kalyuskin, who had remained alive since she was Moldovian, where he was buried. The following day I informed Kalyuskin [the wife] in accordance with it [her husband's wish]. The Gendarmerie men left me at home, when they took away the Jews. What is more not one local resident was driving [a horse-cart]; the Gendarmerie men themselves were driving the horses." The eyewitness Georgii Byzhika, who was born in 1913, in Cǎlǎraşi… testified as follows: "In 1941, as soon as the Romanians [i.e. Romanian troops] arrived in the town of Cǎlǎraşi, the chief of the section of the Gendarmerie Zama and the chief of the post [Nikolai] Şeptiban ordered the patrol policemen who were subordinated to them to arrest all the Jews [of the town].… For three days the Gendarmerie men arrested the Jewish population of the town of Cǎlǎraşi, putting them [the Jews] into the cellar of the … section of the Gendarmerie. All together about 350 people were arrested. The Gendarmerie man Skurtulesku told me about this. In the cellar were elderly men, elderly women, women, teenagers, and nursing infants - all Jews. On the third day after the round up in August 1941, at night, all the Jews were taken to the Vatamaneasa Forest, where they were shot to death. The Gendarmerie man Nikolai Skurtulesku also told me about this: "When the pit had been prepared, all the Jews were lined up near the pit. Then the chief of the [Gendarmerie] section Zama gave the order for each Gendarmerie man and each [Gendarmerie] officer should shoot three people. When Zama gave the order to shoot, the old men, old women, women, and children began to cry. When Zama ordered me to shoot a woman with a nursing baby, they both began to cry. At that time I couldn't shoot [the woman with the baby] so I threw down my rifle and wanted to leave the place forever, but the chief of the section Zama took out his pistol and shouted at me: "Go back [to your place] or I will shoot you to death." I went back and Zama gave me his pistol, I turned and shot at the woman with the nursing baby. After I had wounded her[the mother] the woman said to me: "Shoot again." I shot her another time and she fell [into the pit]. [Then] an officer named Yavorskyi took a machine-gun and shot to death the rest of the Jews."…

The eyewitness Petr Amaryi, who was born in 1901, a resident of the town of Cǎlǎraşi… testified as follows: "As a resident of the town of Cǎlǎraşi I know that in 1941, with the arrival of the Romanian authorities [in the town], there arrived in Cǎlǎraşi [also] a Romanian murder squad - of Gendarmerie, and in our town there was [already] a section of the Gendamerie and a post of the Gendarmerie. The last name of the chief of the Gendarmerie section was Zama and his deputy, who at the same time was the head of the Gendarmerie post, was [Nikolai] Şeptiban.… Both of them were Romanians. … In regard to the murder of the Jewish residents of the town of Cǎlǎraşi I know that in 1941, approximately at the end of July or in early August, over 200 Jews were shot to death in the town of Cǎlǎraşi by the Romanian Gendarmerie headed by chief of the section Zama and chief of the post [Nikolai] Şeptiban, but I don't know the exact number [of victims]. Initially, all the Jewish residents were collected in the cellar of the Gendarmerie building, and then [after 3 days] at night they were taken to the forest about 2-3 kilometers outside the town of Cǎlǎraşi, where the shooting [of the Jewish victims] was carried out and they were buried in pits. The day after the shooting it was my turn to be on duty at the Gendarmerie. While we were talking, the patrol policeman Votnar said to me that on that night all the Jews [of Cǎlǎraşi] had been shot to death. To my question: "How do you know this?" he replied: "I was with the Gendarmerie men where they [the Jews] were shot to death." Eyewitness Anna Norokos, who was born in 1899, [also] a resident of the town of Cǎlǎraşi … testified as follows: "In 1941, I don't remember exactly [when], in July or August, shortly after the Red Army had retreated from the town of Cǎlǎraşi and the Romanian army entered the town, together with Romanian authorities, including the Gendarmerie, approximately on the third day after their arrival [in the town], they began to collect in the town of Cǎlǎraşi all the Jewish residents (who had not succeeded in fleeing to the hinterland of our county [the USSR]), including women, children, and elderly people. My husband was taken with them since he was a Jew. Two Romanian Gendarmerie men came for my husband, …and with them two local residents of the town of Cǎlǎraşi who were working as guards at the Gendarmerie, Grigorii Rypa and Vasilii Roshu. They took him to the cellar – [located in the] building of the Gendarmerie where, by this time, many Jews had been collected. Two or three hours later these two Gendarmerie men came [again] to our apartment and took us all, i.e. me, my daughter Maria, and my mother, to the Gendarmerie building, but they put us not into the cellar but into a different place, into one of the corridors of the Gendarmerie premises. On that night, at about midnight, a Gendarmerie major interrogated me and, together with me, my husband. During the interrogation the major asked why I, a Moldovian, was living with a Jew. I replied that once when I was working with a landowner, he [my future husband] was working there as well. After our meeting, we began living together. The major didn't ask anything else. When my husband began to cry, begging the Romanian major to spare his life, the major replied that it was too late for that, that he should have thought about this earlier. My husband and I were immediately taken from the room. My husband was locked up again in the cellar, while I was left in the same corridor as before. That night all the Jews were taken from the cellar by cart to the forest called Vatamaneasa, about 2-3 kilometers from the town of Cǎlǎraşi. There all of them, including my husband, were shot to death. During the time that all of them [the Jews] were being taken from the cellar, those of us held in the corridor of the Gendarmerie building were all taken 3-4 houses away to another house, the so-called manor house [?] so we couldn't see or hear their the crying [of the Jewish victims]. Approximately 2 hours after all Jews had been taken to the forest, we were taken from the manor house [?] premises to the cellar where the Jews had previously been held. The next day the chief of the Gendarmerie post, whose last name was Şeptiban, came to the cellar and freed us from our guards. …I know that the Gendarmerie men themselves had taken the Jews [to the murder site] by cart. A resident of the town of Cǎlǎraşi, Nikandr Tetu, told me about this since he had been working at that time as a patrol policeman for the Gendarmerie. About one month after the shooting of those Jews, Nikandr Tetu told me that before the shooting my husband Benzion Kalyuskin had asked him [Tetu] to tell me where he was buried."