Murder story of Klewań Jews in the Klewań Market Square

…The [ChGK] committee has determined the following: 1. On the second day after the occupation of the Klewań region, the Hitlerites drove some 200 Jewish civilians to the market square, and they shot them at the same site with machine guns on July 5, 1941. 2. The bodies of the murdered civilians were left lying uncovered in the square for several days; afterward, they were taken to pits that had been dug in advance. 3. The [ChGK] committee has examined an open pit in the area of the First Klewań Rural Council. It lies some 150 meters from the main road and 15 meters to the left of the market square, and approximately 119 bodies have been found in it. 4. The pit is 3 meters long, 4 meters wide, and 3 meters deep. The bodies of the [Jewish] civilians annihilated by the Hitlerites are heaped in a disorderly fashion, one on top of the other. 5. The bodies, which are dressed in decomposed civilian clothing, have undergone all the stages of cadaveric decomposition…. On most of the bodies, round and oval-shaped bullet-sized holes have been found in the occipital and frontal bones of the head, while on other [bodies] nothing has been found, because of the decomposition of the bones. 6. The [ChGK] committee has concluded that this pit contains the remains of massacred civilians, and that this massacre dates to the second half of 1941.

1.…The [ChGK] committee has examined a pit located in the town of Klewań, some 150 meters from the main street (road) and 15 meters from the market square, near the first pit. The pit is sized 2x3x3 meters, and it contains about 87 bodies. 2.The bodies were lying in a disorderly fashion; women’s shoes, boots, and shreds of rotten civilian clothing have been found…. In the occipital and frontal bones of many of the bodies…, there are oval and round holes, matching the diameter of a bullet. 3.The [ChGK] committee has concluded that the murder of the Soviet civilians dates to the period of 1941, and that the perpetrators of this vile crime were the military command of the 44th German Division. 4.The murder of the civilians – elderly people, women, and children – took place on the second day after the arrival of the advance German units. The civilians were driven to the market square, lined up in 5 rows, and shot with machine guns.

…The second massacre of the civilian Jewish population took place in the market [square], to which the same SS unit had driven 150 people. They were all shot with a mounted machine gun. When I reached the bodies, I saw a woman named Shtidel, who was lying there with a six-month-old baby, and there was visible blood on the baby’s chest. Other civilians were driven into the square, to cover these bodies with earth….

…In the first days of July 1941, German-Fascist troops occupied the Klewań region, and from that day they began the mass annihilation of the civilians, especially the Jews. On the night of July 2, 1941, once could hear pistol shots and machine gun fire. On July 2 [sic for July 3], 1941, the Germans were shooting civilians throughout the day. They annihilated as many as 200 people in the market square. Some of the victims were doused with gasoline and burned [alive]. The German [military] command didn’t allow the bodies of the dead civilians to be buried for several days. Eventually, the bodies began to stink so horribly that it wasn’t possible to go out into the street, and the Germans were then forced to order [the Jews] to cover the pits. The murdered civilians from the market square, who numbered about 200, were buried there, at the same site….

…[Besides,] from the accounts of the people I learned that, on the day of their arrival [in Klewań], the Germans had shot several dozen Jewish people in the market square. I was told about this by a Jew who had come to borrow a shovel from me in order to bury them himself….

…The Germans also carried out a mass shooting in the market square. I saw the Germans shoot [Jews] in two places [in the square]: In each of them, they [killed] about 100 people. The Germans didn’t allow the bodies of the dead civilians to be buried until they began to stink. Then, when it was no longer possible to go near the bodies, and when the smell had spread throughout the town, the Germans were forced to round up the remaining Jews and order them to remove the bodies of their murdered fellows. They were buried in the [market] square, near the site where the shooting had taken place…. The mass shooting of the Jews had been carried out by a front-line unit of the German army….

In the first days of July 1941, the German-Fascist monsters occupied the Klewań region. They entered the town of Klewań at about 12 PM on July 1 or 2, 1941. On that day, they began the mass annihilation of the civilian population. During the first days of the occupation of the town of Klewań, I ran away to [a nearby] village and stayed there for two or three days, before returning to the town. When I came back, my neighbors told me that the German monsters… had shot many civilians, and especially Jews. The shooting had supposedly taken place in the market square, near the Jewish prayer house [called] the “synagogue”. After listening to their accounts, I decided to take a walk through the town and see [for myself] whether they were true. As I passed near the market square, I saw a mass of civilians who had been shot. There were elderly individuals, women, and nursing infants among them. I was unable to count the number of dead [Jews], and this was a hopeless task in any case. As many as 200 people had been shot [at that site].

…On July 1 or 2 [sic for July 3] 1941, the German Fascist army of the SS men surrounded several houses in the town of Klewań…, where… Jewish families were living; [the Germans] began to drive them [the occupants] out into the street. My family was in one of these houses. On that day, the Germans drove 70 people out of [these] houses. The 70 innocent civilians were then taken to the market square of the town of Klewań, and [the Germans] began to shoot them with a tank cannon. I, too, was among these 70 people; I was wounded in the leg, and fell on the ground. Several minutes later, the cannon fire ceased, and the Germans immediately began [to fire] single shots with machine guns and pistols. Night had fallen, and the German soldiers were walking among the bodies with a battery-powered spotlight, shining it on each [of the victims]; those who were [still] alive would be finished off with machine-guns. When the German monsters had made sure that there were [no] survivors among the [Jewish] civilians, they began to pour gasoline on the bodies [of the Jewish victims] and burn them. I lay between the bodies, having been lightly wounded in my right leg; since I [was certain] that I was going to die, I decided to run away no matter what. I stood up and began to run. A German soldier saw me and threw a hand grenade after me, but the grenade failed to wound me, and thus I managed to save myself and escape death, [but] my whole family had perished….