Murder story of Krasnogorovka Jews in the Krasnogorovka Area

On February 22, 1942, according to the testimonies of the same civilians [mentioned above], the German commandant Bitin, with the assistance of the traitors to the Motherland…, used the pretext of re-registration to round up the Jews, [including] fifteen men, twenty women, sixteen children aged 10-15, and nine children aged 1-10 (a total of seventy people). On the same day, twenty Gestapo men were called in from Stalino. Additionally, twenty-five soldiers were called in from an unidentified unit. The executioners took all the abovementioned innocent civilians outside the town of Krasnogorovka. They led them [the victims] to the bomb craters and began to carry out shootings, such as had never been seen before: Two Germans armed with parabellum pistols would grip a child by the left arm, lift him/her above the crater, and shoot him/her with their right hand. Afterward, they would throw the children into the pits. The children's mothers, who were standing there under a convoy of Gestapo men, tore their hair out and fell unconscious. After the shooting of the children, the rest [of the victims] were led to the edge of the pit and lined up in rows, facing the Germans. The commandant Bitin arranged twenty-five German soldiers in a row and ordered them to open fire. After several volleys of machine-gun fire, some of the victims fell into the pits, while others fell down wounded on the spot. Although some [of the victims] were only lightly wounded, they were thrown into the pits, and some additional volleys were fired at them. The Germans then began to cover them with soil, while the women and the children were shouting, begging [the killers] to spare them – but to no avail. They were all buried alive.