Murder Story of Zolochev Jews in the Kovshik Ravine

…According to the accounts of local residents and eyewitness testimonies, at 5 PM on the cold day of January 22, 1942, the [auxiliary] policemen, in the presence of two Germans, took out nine women (including two aged ones), one man, and three children aged 3-7 (a total of thirteen people), and shot them in the Kovshik ravine. Their moans and weeping could be heard all over the town of Zolochev and at the Sosnovka farmstead. After the shooting, the Germans and the policemen did not allow anyone to bury [the bodies]. The frozen bodies were left there until the spring, when they were finally buried at the insistence of the local population: The decayed bodies were sprinkled with soil….

…On January 22, 1942, the German-Fascist troops in the town of Zolochev shot [the following] innocent and peaceful residents of the town of Zolochev, Kharkov District: Busya Borisovna Polyakova [Polyak], born 1913; Tatyana Leontyevna [Leonidovna] Polyakova [Polyak], born 1940; Asya Leontyevna [Leonidovna] Polyakova [Polyak], born 1935; Lea Ruvimovna Nemets, born 1889; Bella Grigoryevna Turovskaya, born 1920; Natay [Natan] Grigoryevich Turovskiy, born 1916; Rakhil Turovskaya, born 1893; Tsilya Moiseevna Tsiryulis [Tsirulnik], born 1922; Vera Mikhailovna Brodskaya, born 1892; Sarra [Sara] Yakovlevna Selivanova, born 1920; Gennadi Anatolyevich Silivanov [Selivanov], born 1940; Nessya [Nesya] Yakovlevna Zeiman [Zelman], born 1921, and Sofa Markovna Zeiman [Zelman], born 1896. The investigation has determined the following: On January 22, 1942, after German troops had occupied the town of Zolochev for the first time, the agents of the Germans arrested thirteen innocent, peaceful civilians from the town of Zolochev, who were living at no. 8 on Molochnaya Street. After being tortured during interrogation and subjected to brutal abuse, the abovementioned civilians were shot near the railroad. Their bodies lay unburied for four days, and then they were buried at the same site.

Back in 1939…, I rented out part of my house to Leonid Terentyevich Polyak…. Sometime in late October 1941, upon the orders of the [German] commandant and the police, the rest of the Jews of Zolochev were herded into my apartment, which was occupied by Polyak’s family (there was a separate entrance to that apartment)…. A total of seven people lived together with the Polyakovs [Polyaks] for about two months. The policemen forbade them to move freely through the town. Also, their neighbors, myself included, were forbidden to visit the Jews in this apartment. B[usya] Polyak and Tsirulnik complained to me repeatedly that they would be summoned at night… to the police [station], where the policemen Vasiliy Danilovich Gnatenko and his assistant PyotrKalayda violated and abused them. The daily looting of the Jewish families herded into my apartment began. Several times, I myself saw the [auxiliary] policemen burst into that apartment, beat the Jews, and rob them of their choicest belongings and furniture. On January 21, 1942, at about 4 PM, four auxiliary policemen, whose names I do not know (except for one named Belukha [?]), showed up and ordered all the Jews to get dressed immediately and come to the police station. On the morning after the Jews had been taken off to the station, policemen came to the apartment and took all the rest of the items and furniture. When I asked where these citizens had been taken, an auxiliary policeman told me that the Jews had been taken to Kharkov. On the morning of January 23, I was told by Maria Fedorenkova that all the Jews who had been living in my apartment had been shot at the ravine beyond the railway tracks at 5 PM on January 22. When I went to [that] place on the same day, I saw the bodies of the shot citizens. There was a total of thirteen bodies. The [German] commandant and policemen did not allow anyone to bury these bodies, and only at the insistence of the locals were these bodies interred….

On my way from the front…, on October 8, 1943…, I came to my family’s residence. By talking to the landlady and the neighbors, I learned that my family, along with other Jewish residents, had been subjected to violence, abuse, and torture. Afterward, they were taken out [of the town], ostensibly to the city of Kharkov. [In reality,] they were shot beyond the railway crossing, on the right side of the road leading to Dergachi, at 5 PM on January 22, 1942. The shooting was carried out by police chief Vasiliy Danilovich Gnatchenko [and the auxiliary policeman] Petro Borisenko (Kalayda)….

As a neighbor of Yekaterina Nikolaevna Reznichenko, I knew that the Polyakov [Polyak] Jewish family had occupied an apartment in her house since 1939. In late 1941, when… the Jewish population began to suffer from violence and abuse, two additional Jewish families moved into the apartment occupied by the Polyakovs [Polyaks], with the permission of the tenant Busya Borisovna Polyak. Busya Borisovna Polyak would often visit my apartment, complaining that her landlady, Yekaterina Reznichenko, was displeased with the Jews gathered in her apartment, troubling her, and [she threatened] to ask the town commandant to evict these families out of her apartment. I also recall an incident when the commandant's interpreter, whose name I do not know, burst into the apartment where the Jewish families lived and tried to take away the belongings of members of these families. I entered the apartment, and together we [the Jewish families and I] prevented her [the interpreter] from taking anything. This led to a violent confrontation in the apartment, with the interpreter threatening to shoot us…. Reznichenko stated in my presence that she had had enough of these troubles with the Jews, and said that she would be happy if they were resettled elsewhere. On January 21, 1942, I personally saw three policemen enter the apartment where the Jewish families lived and drive all of the tenants into the street. Two policemen took them to the police [station], while the third one stayed in the courtyard to lock the apartment. While leaving the courtyard, Busya Polyakova [Polyak] bade me farewell and asked me to inform her husband, when I saw him, that all of them have died. From the accounts of residents of Zolochev, I know that the Jews evicted from Reznichenko’s apartment were taken to a cold barn and held there until 5 PM on January 22. Early in the morning of January 23, I learned from an elderly man whose name I do not know, and who is no longer among the living, that all the Jews had been shot by Germans and [local auxiliary] policemen at 5 PM on January 22, in the “Kovshik” ravine beyond the railway tracks. As soon as I learned this, I went to that ravine and saw for myself that all the Jews who used to live in Reznichenko’s apartment had been shot…. Upon the orders of the commandant and the policemen, the bodies of the victims were left unburied, and they lay in the snow for several days. Only at the urgent insistence of the local population were they buried…. I also know that Yekaterina Reznichenko held on to the possessions of the families shot by the German monsters and their accomplices, and I personally saw an overcoat and a dress that had formerly belonged to the murdered Busya Borisovna Polyak drying on a clothesline in Reznichenko’s courtyard….