Murder story of Vitebsk Jews in the Ilovskiy Ravine

...Every day, they would take out [groups] of 150-200 people; by evening, they would load them into carts and take them there, to the area called [unclear] near the river Vitba. There was a ravine there, in which a trench had been dug, and shootings would take place there on a daily basis. QUESTION: Did they carry out a selection of some kind, or did they simply grab anyone they came across? ANSWER: They would proceed sector by sector. Let's say they were going along the fence perimeter and picking [the people] from here to there: Off you go into the cart… QUESTION: Did this take place in the morning? ANSWER: No, it took place toward evening… QUESTION: Yefim Davidovich, how did your family perish? What happened on that day? ANSWER: On that day, I myself was in the ghetto, rather than away on an errand. Our sector was combed, and [people] were taken away in carts. QUESTION: Did this, too, happen in the evening? ANSWER: It happened toward the evening. QUESTION: What month was it? ANSWER: It was in October. QUESTION: Was it already cold? ANSWER: Yes, it was quite cold. QUESTION: Did the Germans surround that sector? ANSWER: Yes, the Germans surrounded it. QUESTION: Did you realize what was going to happen to you? ANSWER: We already knew that they were shooting [people]. QUESTION: How many people were surrounded at that time? ANSWER: I cannot say exactly, but it was about 150-200 people. QUESTION: Was the cart full of people? ANSWER: Yes, the carts, there was more than one cart, I did not count them, but there were many carts. We were taken to the shooting site. QUESTION: Was it far from Vitebsk? ANSWER: No, it was in the city itself, in the city itself. There was a ravine with a trench dug in it. QUESTION: Did local residents see you being driven there? ANSWER: Yes, they saw it. We were taken across the bridge [?]. QUESTION: Do you remember their reaction? ANSWER: Well, the reaction was…How should I put it? People would stop to watch. Many stopped to watch – and, by the way, some of them were laughing. I saw it clearly. After all, you know that, at such moments, you are not making an effort to memorize anything; you are only guessing. QUESTION: Did you sit beside you mother in the cart? ANSWER: Yes, beside my mother. QUESTION: Did she say anything? ANSWER: She mostly cried, mostly cried. QUESTION: What happened after your arrival [at the murder site]? ANSWER: We were herded on foot toward that spot, into the ravine, since the carts could not go up there. QUESTION: Were you forced to strip naked? ANSWER: No. We were not forced to strip naked. There wasn't anything to strip, since we were dressed only in rags. QUESTION: Was it already dark? ANSWER: Well, it was semi-dark, a kind of semi-darkness. Briefly, we were lined up in three columns – or,rather, in three rows. My mother was standing in front, hiding me behind her back. [She told me]: "Shvayg, zunele, shvayg; shvayg, zunele, shvayg" [Be silent, sonny, be silent]. I was silent, and she kept crying and hiding me. And then [unclear, is crying], sorry… I felt a push… fell down together with all the others… QUESTION: Was the ravine deep? ANSWER: There was a trench.The ravine itself was large, and there was also a trench. My mother fell upon me, I must say that I was not even scratched, while mother was already dead. I lay there. QUESTION: How long did you lie? ANSWER: I lay there for about an hour and a half, maybe even two hours, I do not know. I had lost all sense of time, but it was already dark when I crawled out from beneath the bodies. QUESTION: Were you able to breathe as you lay there for four hours [?], or were you suffocating? ANSWER: No, I was not suffocating. There was enough air, since we were not covered with earth, not buried. QUESTION: Did you see your mother while you were crawling out or…? ANSWER: I did, of course. She lay over me… QUESTION: She had covered you with her body, had she not? ANSWER: Yes, she'd covered me with her body… QUESTION: Do you know whether you were the only survivor of that day of shooting, or were there others like [you]? ANSWER: This I do not know. This I do not know… Well, I crawled out, cried for a while… QUESTION: Were there no guards there? ANSWER: No. QUESTION: The bodies appear to have been buried on the next day, right? ANSWER: The bodies there were not buried at all, because new bodies were brought on the next day. QUESTION: You mean the new victims. ANSWER: Yes, the new victims. QUESTION: Where did you go? ANSWER: I went to the river, to the stream, as I was completely drenched in blood. I washed myself…