Murder Story of Konotop Jews at the Konotop Old Brick Factory

In March 1943, I personally saw a truck, [loaded] with a large number of people, approaching the quarry of the brick factory. As soon as the vehicle stopped, the Germans began to violently pull the people out of it, forcing them to strip naked and lie down on the ground in turns. Then, they took them to a pit that had been dug in advance, and shot them with machine gun volleys and with single shots. Several days later, also in March, the vehicle approached the quarry once again, and people were pulled out of it, forced to strip naked, and shot. When [the people] in this vehicle were finished off, I saw a second vehicle arrive. It was carrying a woman with a nursing infant and two other minors. As soon as the vehicle stopped, the woman and the children began to cry terribly, apparently reluctant to leave the vehicle. Hence, the Germans started pulling them down, and the nursing baby was snatched away by a German, despite the woman's best efforts to protect it. He grabbed it with one hand around the neck, lifted it, and carried it to the pit. Immediately afterward, I heard a shot. The other children and the woman were then dragged to the pit and shot, as well. From the voices of the woman and the children, I deduced that they were a Jewish family.

After arriving in Konotop in September 1941, the Germans immediately proceeded to arrest innocent civilians en masse. Using any pretext, they seized partisans, communists, Komsomol members, Soviet activists, and other people. The entire Jewish population was arrested, as well, including the elderly individuals and the children. In early July 1942, I learned that the Germans were planning to execute four hundred of the arrestees, who were being held in the military barracks of the artillery command. The shooting was to take place in the area of the brick factory, in the quarry – i.e., near the place where I lived.… Several hours before the shooting, the policemen brutally beat the victims, whom the Gestapo had doomed to a painful death. The horrible screams and moans of the victims could be heard from the basement [which lay some 100 meters from the military barracks] at the time of these beatings. After all this terrible torment, late at night, the victims were taken to the area of the brick factory. There, those able to stand were shot dead. Those who could not stand after their ordeal were buried alive in the pit, together with the bodies of the shot ones. I also saw that the pit had been dug on the day before the shooting. At 7 AM on the next morning, I decided to go to the site of the massacre, to convince myself of the reality of this atrocity. Several women, whose husbands were apparently among [the murdered], went along with me. I do not remember their last names, but they were residents of Konotop. We all saw the pit that I had seen on the day before. It was now covered with a thin layer of soil, and there were bloodstains nearby. The pit was approximately ten meters long, three-four meters wide, and three meters deep…. One day in March 1943 (I do not remember the exact date, but it was on a Saturday or a Sunday, at about 2-3 PM), the Germans began to take the arrestees, in groups of about forty-fifty, out of the barn to the courtyard of the regimental barracks. I saw this through the window of my apartment. Immediately, one of the groups, which numbered about fifty people, was led along Tchaikovsky Street, past my house, to the brick factory, which was guarded by soldiers. About ten minutes later, I heard the sound of several submachine gun volleys. Afterward, the next group of about forty people was sent out. However, this time they were led not along the street, but through the courtyard [and] the ravine. Once again, their departure was followed by the sounds of gunfire. In total, about eight groups, with as many as 300 people among them, were dispatched. The last group was made up of women. The next day, I went out to the place where the barbarians had herded their victims. There, I beheld a fresh pit, covered with a thin layer of earth. The area of the pit was about eighteen-twenty square meters. It was oval in shape.