Murder Story of Kharkov Jews at the Tractor Plant in Kharkov (Gas Vans)

…In the interwar period (1914-1941), our family lived in the city of Kharkov, in a two-story brick house on a street corner. There was a similar house in the courtyard, and a Ukrainian woman named Stepanida lived on its first floor…. Her husband was… a quiet, cultured, and taciturn man…, whose name was Semyon Grigoryevich Ass. His Jewish identity became known only during the war. In 1941, the Germans arrived in the city, and shortly thereafter all the Jews were ordered to come to the Kharkov Tractor Plant. There, all of them were brutally annihilated. After the war, an eyewitness told us that “Baby” [Stepanida’s nickname] had refused to abandon her Semyon, and she accompanied him in death…. ”Whatever happens to him should happen to me, as well,” she said. The Germans granted her “wish”, and the remains of this simple, kindhearted Ukrainian woman are now buried with the remains of her beloved Semyon and those of 30,000 [other] Jews in the trenches near the tractor plant….

…On December 15, 1941…, all the Jews were ordered to leave the city and move into the barracks beyond the tractor plant, 12 km from the city…. Elderly and sick individuals were shot on the spot. Even before the general order about the shooting of all Jews was given, some fifty people would be shot on a daily basis, on various pretexts.

…I have been informed that today, December 15, 1941, all the Jews were to leave the city and move into the barracks beyond the tractor plant, twelve kilometers from Kharkov…. Some fifty people would be murdered on a daily basis before the order about the general shooting was given. Once, they announced: “If the children are heard crying at night, we will shoot everybody”….

…As for your parents and sister, please accept my condolences for their tragic deaths. They perished at the hands of the Germans because of their ethnicity. They were all banished to the area beyond the tractor [plant], and there their death sentence was carried out….

…Sometime later, Faina was taken (to the ghetto) at the KhTZ [Kharkov Tractor Plant] and shot in a quarry of the local brick factory. 16,000 Jews from Kharkov, victims of the Holocaust, lie there with her….

…They seized anyone they could lay their hands on and took them outside. In silence, swallowing their tears, the people were digging in the frozen ground with spades. They would never return to the barracks…. Two days later, officers burst into the barracks. In the dim flashlight, they made their way among the tightly packed lying inmates, seeking out children and smearing their lips with some liquid. Sometime later, the barracks were filled with the horrible cries of these children. Their tiny, exhausted bodies were writhing in agony on the cold earth floor. In the morning, soldiers piled the children’s bodies and took them to a ravine…. Late at night on Christmas Eve, the roar of vehicles was heard near the barracks. Several people crawled to the windows, peering into the dark. The light of the torches revealed people sitting in the vehicles. Some of them were singing in shrill voices; others were hopping on one leg, and one of them kept screaming all the time. The inmates in the barracks realized that these were mentally ill individuals. The officer ordered them to get down several times. However, the frightened mental patients huddled together and refused to budge. Then, the soldiers climbed into the vehicles, grabbed the people by the hair, and threw them into the snow, whereupon they trampled them underfoot, beat them, and tore off their clothes. The people screamed wildly, rushing to and fro. [The killers] smashed their skulls with rifle butts, shot them with submachine guns, and stabbed them with knives, so that the cries [of the victims] would draw the attention of the people in the barracks. The massacre of the mentally ill people went on until morning. This was done to intimidate “the Kikes”….

…On the night of December 15-16, 1941, an order by the burgomaster [mayor] was posted on every pole, on every door, in all the streets, courtyards, and entrances throughout Kharkov… It bore the following text… in German, Ukrainian, and Russian…, in bold letters: [“] To the Kikes of the city of Kharkov! In ten days, beginning on Monday (this was between December 16-18), all the Kikes must move to the area of the tractor plant… for permanent resettlement[“]…. We arrived there tired. We entered… [a building] that looked like a barrack. These were stables, and anti-tank trenches had been dug behind them… by the Russians, to defend against German tanks in case of retreat…. So we arrived there… Come morning, the barracks were crammed with people…. There was more than one barrack; it was a very big place, and some 30,000 people were crowded there.… I must say that they were not too considerate for a long time. However, they concealed the fact that they were shooting people, pretending that these people were being selected for work. Q: The Germans? A: The Germans. However, we would later learn that there were actually few Germans. There were 10-20 Poles for every German; these were low-ranking officers…, and they were in charge of it all, while all the dirty work was done by Ukrainian auxiliary policemen…. We did not know that there were Poles there, but my father, who was fluent in several languages, learned all this. Later, I found out that he had given something to some Pole. I do not know whether he gave him ten [rubles?] or gold, but – to make a long story short – he bought my life, as it turned out. As he was being taken away to be shot – I mean, they did not tell us that he was about to be shot, only that he would be sent away to work – this officer left me at his side, and then… I heard gunfire and cries, but I did not see it, because we had stayed behind…. He then took me out of the gate and told me to go home. It was said in Polish [or] Ukrainian, but he was an officer. Q: And you father was taken away? A: And my father was taken away. Q: And he did not return? A: No. I heard those shots and cries. He was not taken alone, but with a group of people; there were several vehicles. They were shot in front of those anti-tank trenches….