Murder story of Romny Jews in the Peska Ravine

In the first days of November 1941, town mayor Andreyeevski, police chief Zambalevski, and the German commander, Major Van-Das-Leben, mobilized all the police officers and administrative personnel. With the support of German troops, the entire Jewish population was arrested and taken to the German military barracks on Voroshilov Street. The Jews were told that they would be evacuated elsewhere, so they had to prepare for the trip and bring along their valuables: their best and most precious possessions, as well as cash. The Jews were arrested in their apartments and in the streets. The workers [local residents] witnessed the arrest and convoying [of the Jews], which were accompanied by torture, beatings, and humiliation of the Jewish population by the policemen and Germans. The protests against these tortures, and the crying of the Jewish population, were heard all over the town. When the Jews were herded into the barracks, they numbered about 3000, including elderly people and children. The building was surrounded by policemen and German soldiers, all of them armed with machine guns and automatic rifles. There, in the barracks, all the valuables of the unfortunates were taken away, and their higher-quality clothes were stolen, as well. On the following day, November 10, 1941, all the Jews were led under heavy guard from the barracks in the direction of the village of Peska in the Romny County, some two kilometers from the town of Romny. There, all the Jews were shot and tortured to death on a hill overlooking three ravines. The sight of the Jews going to their deaths, and of the shooting itself, was horrible…. Women held their small children in their arms; the others were hugging their loved ones and family members as they walked. Cries of farewell to the rest of the town's population were heard, along with the weeping of the men, the elderly people, the women, and the children. Those lagging behind were beaten by the police officers and the Germans, who used rifle butts and bayonets. The civilians living near the route of the Jews to the execution site had been confined to their apartments. They were forbidden to watch this terrible scene, on pain of death by shooting. The Sula River, which is approximately seven meters wide at that point, flows next to the shooting site, under the hill. There, the German monsters forced the Jews to strip to their underwear, and then marched the half-naked people across the river and up the hill, in the bitter cold (with the temperature being minus fifteen degrees [Celsius]). [On the hill,] the women and children were separated from the men, and the people were then shot in groups of 10-15 above the ravine. The [victims] fell into the ravine, mortally wounded and still alive: Some of the children who had been shot with machine guns in the ravine remained alive until they were covered with soil. The Fascist villains stabbed with bayonets those unable or unwilling to proceed to the shooting site, the ravine; children were dashed against the ground, and then thrown into the ravine. Prior to the execution, the Jews' clothes and valuables were stolen; after the execution, they were taken to the town by the policemen and Germans, and then distributed among the policemen and the Fascist administrative staff of the town. Most of the choicest articles were transported to Germany.