Murder story of Imeni Lenina Kolkhoz Jews in the Potato Storage Pit in the Lenin Collective Farm

During the German occupation, eighteen Jewish people came to our place from the Nadezhnaya farmstead, the Novozlatopol County. They moved into the barrack where I lived, and we became neighbors. On March 4, 1942, a German punitive squad arrived in our kolkhoz, and they immediately came to our barrack. There were a lot of people hanging about the barrack, and the Germans, who were seven in number, forced everyone inside and raided the apartments where the Jews lived. After some time, the three [Jewish] families, eighteen people in total, were taken from their apartments and herded into a basement, where they stayed for half an hour, or even less. Then, a cart loaded with Germans arrived in the vegetable storage pit. They [the Germans] began to let the Jews out and count them. Once all eighteen Jews had been accounted for, the Germans forced them to go toward the kolkhoz barns, where there were potato storage pits. The Germans then opened fire on them with submachine guns and pistols. All eighteen people were shot and thrown into the potato storage pit. I do not remember all their last names, but I do recall the following individuals: 1) Mikhail Vladimirovich Drabovskiy, whose family consisted of seven people aged 3–70; 2) Mifadol (I do not remember his first name), whose family consisted of six people aged 3–50; 3) [Another person] (I do not remember his name), whose family consisted of five people aged 4–55.

On March 4, 1942, eighteen Soviet civilian evacuees of Jewish origin (mostly women, elderly people, and children), who lived in the area of the Kolkhoz named after Lenin in Stary Kermenchik County, were taken from their barracks and locked in a basement. After keeping them in the basement for thirty minutes at most, the German bandits took them to a potato storage pit near the kolkhoz barns. There, in broad daylight, they openly massacred the helpless women, elderly people, and children. They [the Germans] shot them with submachine guns and pistols, and threw [the bodies of] the abovementioned victims into the potato storage pit. It has been impossible to establish the name of every victim of the shooting; they are not included in the county victim list.