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Murder story of Doybany Jews in the Anti-Tank Trench in Doybany
Murder Site
Doybany
Ukraine (USSR)
On September 3, 1941, a German murder squad, most probably a detachment of Einsatzkommando 12, came to the village of Doybany from the town of Dubăsari. This unit was under the command of a German, who was apparently named Rein.
Sometime prior to that, the German authorities sent a letter to Ignat Ceban, the headman of the village of Doybany I, instructing him to round up the Communists, the Soviet activists (individuals who had held official positions under the Soviet regime), and all the Jews (both permanent residents and temporary refugees) in Doybany I. All these individuals were to be assembled in the rural council building.
When the German murder squad arrived in Doybany I, seven local Jews (including two children) had already been assembled at the rural council building. Shortly afterward, another ten Jews from Bessarabia, who happened to be in the village at the time, were brought there. The former Communists and Soviet activists were also gathered at the site. The Germans assembled these groups of people in the hall of the rural council. The Communists and Soviet activists were interrogated and severely beaten. By contrast, the Jews were not interrogated, but simply asked for their first and last names, and then immediately taken to an anti-tank trench on the outskirts of the village, where they were shot dead with machine guns (or rifles, according to one testimony). Afterward, the Communists and Soviet activists were taken to the same site to be executed. A total of twenty-seven people – ten non-Jews and seventeen Jews, including several Jewish children – were killed on that day. The bodies of all the victims were buried by local non-Jewish residents. The Germans forbade the locals to exhume the bodies from the trench. After the shooting, the Dubăsari prefectura (Romanian Gendarmerie) ordered the property of the Jewish victims to be brought to the premises of the Doybany I rural council. From there, it was taken to the headquarters of the Romanian Gendarmerie in Dubăsari.
Related Resources
Written Testimonies
Soviet Reports
ChGK Soviet Reports
The testimony of Vladimir Dicusar, who was born in 1926 in Doybany I and lived there during the war; from an interview taken by Diana Dumitru in 2007:
…On September 3, [1941], a murder squad arrived [in Doybany I]… by truck. It was a covered truck, not a large one. It was the German murder squad… that had assembled all the Jews at the [former] club [i.e., the rural council building].
Q: Did you see them being rounded up?
A: Of course I did. And I also saw them being led away to be shot – I counted them all. Tzipa [Finkelstein] was leading this Muscovite boy [i.e., her grandson]… by the hand, [and he kept asking her]: "Grandma, where are we going? Where are they taking us?" Meanwhile, Zis [Zus Finkelstein, Tzipa's husband] was waving his arms, [saying:] "This is the end, this is the end." As for Lyova [the son of Zus and Tsipa Finkelstein], he had grabbed his [one-year-old] daughter, and was holding on tightly to her, as if to prevent anyone else from taking her away. And thus he went with her [to the shooting site]. They [the Jews] went out onto the road, and they passed me by. And this was one family; there was another Jew, an elderly man..., and he was taken there, [as well]; he went with them [to be shot]. As soon as they turned..., [shots were heard]:" Bang, bang," and they were dead.
Q: Did you hear the shots?
A: The shots…, I heard them…, and then [the Germans] came back…. They entered the truck…. The Jews had been escorted [to the shooting site] on foot. They were taken out of the club, led to the outskirts of the village, and shot dead. There was an anti-tank trench there…, and they [the Germans] killed them in this trench.
Q: How long did it take the Germans to return [from the shooting site]?
A: They came back quickly, on the move…, "Bang, bang," and that was over with…. [The shooting lasted] about 10-15 minutes. They weren't [armed] with machine guns, but with rifles.
Q: Approximately how many Germans escorted them [the Jews to the shooting site]?
A: There were… about five Germans escorting them. One of them stayed behind in the truck – he was the driver. And their commander stayed at the [rural council building] hall. They [the Germans] took them [the Jews] out [to the killing site], and then they began to call for the [Soviet] activists of the village…. [There were] ten of them.…
USHMM RG-50.572.0067.
Doybany
anti-tank trench
Murder Site
Ukraine (USSR)
47.390;29.206