Murder story of Aleksandrja Jews in the Svyattya Forest

The day after Yom Kippur At 11 a.m. I was as usual in the ghetto. Suddenly a rumor spread like fire through the ghetto that 15 minutes beforehand two trucks with Russian [Soviet] POWs, who held shovels, passed [near the town]. Before the convoy a German was riding a motorcycle and behind the convoy the other one. They drove towards the road leading to [the village] of Svyattya. The members of Judenrat called a right man who drove behind the trucks. After an hour he returned and informed that the trucks stopped near the railroad tracks, before the Syattya Forest, the captive soldiers got off the trucks holding shovels, and Germans led them in the direction of the forest. I don't think a lot, I run towards the house. In the house my father also told us that he saw trucks passing near us towards Svyattya [village]. A short consultation. We decide that probably this is the end and that we should go away as fast as possible. … we escaped from the house through the inner back yards and we arrived behind the warehouse of Chuikov Christian family. … [Later they left the town] and on the next day we arrived to Old Lyubomirka [located north to Aleksandria]. … We seat there for 48 hours. On the third day a forest keeper appeared in front of us … his name was Gzibobskyi, he had a house inside the forest not far away from where we stayed. He knew my father…. .He also told us what happened in Aleksandria and how the Jews of the town were exterminated, how on the day of our escape the ghetto was surrounded by Ukrainian and German policemen. The reinforcement of the police was brought from the whole area, he also told us that [Germans] were looking after us in our house … . All the people were gathered during the night in the town's center, at the former market territory, … People, including children, were ordered to sit on the earth during the whole night and not to get up or to move. They weren't allowed to take anything, including food or drink. For a meanwhile, [the police] was going from house to house not only in the ghetto but in the entire town, looking for people, those who had been found [in hiding] were brought to the gathering point. Towards morning a procession, a death march began. All the crowd, encircled by hundreds of policemen, went on its last road towards the Svyattya Forest….All the people were taken to the [before] prepared pits inside the forest, they were ordered to get undressed and to get in groups inside the pit and to lie down. A volley of shots – and the next ones [had to lie inside the pit]. The Germans themselves were shooting [the victims]. Only those who tried to run away were killed by the Ukrainian policemen who were standing around, guarding [the killing site], the Judenrat members were left for the end. They were ordered to sort the clothes of the dead. They worked a whole day long in sorting [the clothes] and at the end they too were exterminated while wearing their own clothes. …