Murder Story of Pepeni Jews at the Town Hall in Pepeni

…On the day when I was arrested and taken to the cellar of the former town hall building, Ion Bordei, chief of the Romanian Gendarmerie, ordered the villagers of Pepeni to round up all the Jewish residents [of the village], young and old, and lock them in the building, right in front of our cellar. During this time, we watched the proceedings through the door slit, and saw how [Gendarmerie chief] Ion Bordei, together with the other gendarmes and residents of Pepeni, was preparing a bloody reprisal [against the arrested Jews]. When all the Jewish families had been arrested, Ion Bordei ordered his gendarmes and the locals to begin the bloody reprisal. Moreover, Bordei himself began to shoot the Jews with his rifle… firing directly into the [town hall] building. At that time, the Jews being held inside the building began to jump [out] through the windows. Those who had jumped out were finished off on the spot. A total of 300-350 people were annihilated, [including] elderly individuals and children. Furthermore, not all the murdered Jewish civilians had been residents of the village of Pepeni; rather, some of them were [refugees] from the towns of Bǎlți and Teleneşti. When the bloody reprisal was over, the killed [victims] were taken away by oxen to a sand quarry near the village of Pepeni….

…Sometime in July 1941, all the Jewish residents of the village [of Pepeni] were rounded up by conscripts from the village and herded into the town hall building. A lot of people had been assembled, but I don't know the exact number. I was among them. We were all crammed into three rooms, and women with little children were [sitting] separately [from the others]. We spent three days in the [town hall] building, without any food or water. Toward evening on the third day, we were driven into the [town hall] courtyard, beaten with rifles, and herded [back] into the building. Then,[the Romanian gendarmes] began to shoot us. As soon as they opened fire, my mother took me by hand, and we, together with some others, jumped out of the window. A total of about 30 people jumped out at this moment, and they began to scatter in all directions. The conscripted guards began to kill the fugitives. My mother had been hit with a chain in her shoulder, and she fell, while I rushed aside, and was thus able to get away. My father, who had also escaped the massacre in the [town hall] building, found me [hiding] in the garden.He had been injured in his hand, but not seriously. … We were able to escape only because the killers had started shooting through the windows from the street side, while we were kept in a room facing the courtyard, where there was no shooting [yet]. …About 30 infants aged 1-2 had been assembled in the [town hall] building, [and most of them were killed]….

… On July 13, 1941, after the Red Army troops had retreated from the village of Pepeni, the chief of the [Romanian] Gendarmerie, Ion Bordei, together with two [other] gendarmes whom I saw personally, arrived in the village. At the time of his arrival in Pepeni, the village had a large number of Jewish evacuees from the different villages [of Bessarabia] and from the town of Bǎlți. Bordei proceeded to arrest the entire Jewish population [of Pepeni], from the youngest to the oldest. All the arrestees were taken to the school [i.e., town hall] building, where they [the gendarmes] crammed the rooms full of people.They shut the windows, and people were suffocating because of the lack of air and water. There were about 350 people [Jews] – men, women, elderly people, and children. The arrestees, including myself, were forced to sit for 24 hours in [these] torturous conditions. On the afternoon of the second day, July 16 [i.e., 15], on the orders of Bordei, all the arrestees were lined up near the school [town hall], and were later returned to the same building. However, this time they were separated: The women were held without the children; the young girls and little children were held apart from their relatives. In these torturous conditions, we sat, suffocating from the lack of air and suffering from thirst, until July 15 [i.e., 16], 1941. On the evening of July 15 [16], 1941, the building, with hundreds of people inside, was surrounded by conscripts (who had been mobilized by Gendarmerie chief Ion Bordei) armed with pitchforks, chains, axes, and other implements. When the encirclement [of the town hall building] was complete, [Ion] Bordei and the other gendarmes opened fire through the windows into the rooms where the people were sitting. Moans and screams were then heard, and people began to jump out of the windows, but they were killed nearby. I managed to break through the encirclement and witnessed the terrible spectacle of the brutal annihilation of the [Jewish] civilians. But I couldn't linger there, and I hurried to get away from the reprisal. Among the victims were: my mother, Khaya Talpalatskaya, aged 35; my father, Srul Talpalatskiy, aged 40; my 12-year-old brother Yannya, and my 6-month-old sister Maria. All of them were killed in the bloody pogrom staged by Gendarmerie chief [Ion] Bordei and his accomplices. Among the victims, there were women who gave birth during the torturous arrest. One of them was Tsuli Zilberman….

Being a resident of Pepeni, I know that, on July 13, 1941, following the withdrawal of Red Army troops [from Pepeni], the [Romanian] Gendarmerie chief Ion Bordei, together with six other gendarmes, arrived in Pepeni. He then proceeded to arrest all the Jewish residents who were present in the village. Women, elderly people, and little children were subject to these arrests. Thus, on July 13-15, 1941, Gendarmerie chief[Ion] Bordei and his accomplices arrested about 250 [Jews] and kept them locked in the building of the [former] school and village council. Furthermore, the arrestees were separated, with the men held apart from the women, and the little children separated from their mothers. During [these] three days, the people weren’t given any food or water. On July 15, 1941, a mass slaughter of the arrested residents was carried out. On the evening of that day, July 15, I was on my way from the field toward my home. As I was nearing the place of detention [i.e., the town hall building], I was prevented from going further and told to turn back. At the other end of the village, at a distance of one kilometer [from the murder site], I heard the sounds of gunfire, the banging of other [heavy] objects, and the tortured screams of women and little children. This went on until dawn. Afterward, all became quiet, and, on the morning of July 16, as I was walking home, I passed through the buildings [building] where the [Jewish] civilians had been brutally annihilated. I saw the signs of congealed blood on the walls and floors. Upon the orders of [Ion] Bordei, the floors were scrubbed clean, while the walls were whitewashed, to remove all traces of his bloody crimes.… When the brutal annihilation [of the Jews] was over, the bodies of the tortured and murdered women, elderly people, and children were taken outside the village, thrown into a stone quarry about 5 kilometers from Pepeni, and covered with earth….

….On July 13, 1941, on the orders of Ion Bordei, chief of the Romanian Gendarmerie… all the Jewish residents who were present in the village of Pepeni at the time… were locked in the building of the town hall, on the pretext of having their documents checked. A total of about 300-350 people were rounded up. The arrested Jewish residents were held in the town hall building for 3 days, without food or water. Among the arrestees, there were 1-2 year-old infants and five pregnant women. On the third day, at about 7-8 PM, a brutal massacre [of Jews] began on the orders of Ion Bordei, chief of the Romanian Gendarmerie. As a signal to begin the massacre, several hand grenades were tossed through the windows of the building. This was followed by mass-shooting with rifles. Some people, who were being held in rooms at the opposite [back] end of the building, tried to escape [through the windows], but were killed in the courtyard [of the town hall] with chains and stakes. When most of the arrestees had been murdered, the bodies were removed from the building, while the survivors were finished off inside the building with chains, iron hammers, and stakes. The killing went on until 1-2 AM. Afterward, the bodies [of the victims] were taken to a stone quarry located 4 kilometers from the village of Pepeni… where they were buried…. The interrogation of Vasilii Chaban has revealed that the bodies of most of the victims were naked and terribly mutilated [namely]: 1. Fractured arms and legs. 2. Broken skulls. 3. Absence of arms and legs….