Murder Story of Grigoropolisskaya Jews at the Pravda Collective Farm

150 people were arrested on October 12, 1942 in the village of Grigoropolisskaya of the Novoaleksandrovsky County. Most of them were Jewish citizens. The arrests were carried out by policemen acting under the orders of the village commander. Using a list of names, they went through the village residence by residence. All the arrestees were taken to School No 22 and locked in the small teachers' room – women, children, girls, and elderly people all herded together. The arrestees were beaten with rifle butts. They were tortured and taunted; they were not even allowed to leave the room to relieve themselves. At dawn on October 13, Petr Sapunov, the chief of the county police, arrived there, accompanied by Bulankin, the headman of the village. They checked the people's documents, and then everyone was loaded onto a vehicle and taken to a pit in the forest, in the area of the Pravda collective farm, near an unfinished hospital. The people were thrown into the pit by traitors to the Motherland wearing German uniforms, but there was one German sitting at the edge of the pit, and he shot (the victims) dead with a machine gun. Toddlers were snatched out of their mothers' arms and thrown into the pit alive.