Murder story of Kamenka Moldavskaya Jews in the Dniester River in Kamenka Moldavskaya

…We ran [toward the shooting site]; there were many locals gathered there; a chain of Romanian soldiers [i.e., gendarmes] stood around [the shooting site], and there was nowhere to run to. And there was an ice hole [on the Dniester River]…. [I don't know] whether it was natural or manmade, and there were three-four people [gendarmes] standing [near] it…. They were [beating the victims] on the head with truncheons… and [throwing them] into the ice hole. And there was one Jew whose name was Rata – a healthy, strong woman. And she grabbed two of them [the gendarmes with the truncheons]…, and threw one of them into the ice hole, while the other was shouting: "Shoot her, shoot her!" [The gendarmes] opened fire on this Jewish woman; they threw her [into the ice hole], like the gendarme who had drowned [in that hole]. This woman was from Kamenka… There were many [Jews], both foreign ones and locals from Kamenka…. [I watched the shooting] from a distance of about thirty meters…. [The Romanian gendarmes] didn't let anyone come [very] close [to the shooting site].… There were some sixty-seventy people [Jews] lined up there. Q: Did you see from where these Jews had been brought [to the shooting site]? A: From an inn…. Q: Was this inn far from the site where they [the Jews] were drowned in the Dniester River? A: Far away…. Q: How many Romanian soldiers were there? A: There were gendarmes, approximately a company… of 120 people. Q: Did all of them take part in this [murder] operation? A: Yes, of course…. There was a cordon [around the murder site] to prevent us from getting closer and prevent them [the Jews] from escaping. This was in 1942, in the winter, after the New Year.… There was heavy snow, and [traces] of blood on the snow; the snow was red.… They [the Romanian gendarmes] were throwing the barely-living people [into the ice hole]; they were just wounding them and throwing them down.… [The Romanians were beating the Jews] with truncheons, to hurt them more easily…. There were four individuals wielding truncheons [near the ice hole]…, while the others, armed with rifles, stood a little further off. Q: Were all of them [the Jews] stopped near the ice hole? A: No, they [were stopped] at a distance of ten meters, and then shot in turn, in groups of four…. I recall that some ten people [Jews] tried to run away from the site. But where could they run to? There was nowhere to run, because you couldn't flee either in this direction [apparently, where the gendarmes had been positioned] or in that one [to the right bank of the Dniester]. You could not flee into Bessarabia, either. And so [at that moment], I assume, they [the Romanians] decided that they would rather shoot them, so as not to beat them with truncheons anymore, and they opened fire [on the fleeing Jews]…, [killing them]. They were lying dead on the Dniester River, on the ice…. I remember that I was frozen by that time, so I went home. In all likelihood, I had been present there for about three hours.…

…[The Romanian gendarmes] were leading [the Jews in groups of] thirty-forty [from the town center to the Dniester River].… There was a market [in the town], surrounded with iron gates, and they were rounded up there. I don't know how many [Jews had been rounded up], but there were many [of them].… We watched [the massacre] from a distance of 50-100 meters…, [since] we weren’t allowed to get closer.… We saw [the killings] several times. [For several days], we would get out of school and run there, [telling each other] to go and see [what was going on at the murder site].… There [on the Dniester River], a big hole – three meters long and four meters wide – had been cut in the ice…, I don't know by whom…. The gendarmes were leading [the people to the ice hole] under a [Romanian] guard of… about seven people…, as many as nine-ten people…. All [the Jews] were lined up on the ice, along with six-seven guards…. The other two [guards] were dragging them [the Jews] there [to the ice hole on the Dniester River]. They were unarmed…. And thus, they would grab a man or a woman and drag them [to the ice hole], while the victims were crying and trying to resist, since they knew where they were being taken. However, [the Romanian gendarmes] kept dragging them…. If they found it too hard [to bring the victims to the ice hole], another [gendarme] would run up and push [the victim]… straight into the hole…. And once the victim had been thrown down the hole, there was no way out for them…. All the victims [were thrown down the ice hole] one by one. I didn't see… any young people [among the assembled Jews]…. Most of them were aged.… [But there was] one woman with a child; she didn't want to give up her child – it was a nursing infant – and she had wrapped it [tightly], since it was winter.… She was holding [on to the ice]; she was a healthy woman…, and two [gendarmes] could not [drag her to the ice hole]. A third one came to their aid and [pushed her], and she began to shout, but it was the end for her; there was nowhere she could run to save herself…. This was in January-February [1942].…