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Murder Story of Vinnitsa Jews at the Tyazhilov Brick Factory

Murder Site
Tyazhilov Brick Factory
Ukraine (USSR)
On the morning of September 19, 1941 Germans and Ukrainian auxiliaries started to drive the Jews living in the Zamostye area on the right bank of South Bug River out of their homes to the collection point on Kotsyubinskiy Avenue. From there the victims were taken to a brick factory in Tyazhilov (then on the eastern outskirts of the city, now part of Vinnitsa). After being forced to strip naked, the victims were shot at a pit. It is unknown how many people were murdered in Tyazhilov, but the total number of victims of the September 19 massacre exceeded 10,000. The perpetrators were members of Einsatzkommando 6 of Einsatzgruppe C and of the 45th, of the 314th Order Police Battalions, probably also of 304th Order Police Battalion and Ukrainian auxiliaries.
Related Resources
From the Testimony of Yakov Spivak:
… [During the night] between September 18 and 19, 1941 at 3 a. m. German and [local] policemen started to go through the Jewish apartments in the Zamostye area. All the elderly and the women and children were driven out of their apartments and taken to [a collection] point at Kotsyubinskiy Avenue, No. 96. At 8 a. m. two large German trucks arrived and the people were loaded onto them and taken to a sand [quarry] near the Tyazhilovo [Tyazhilov] (brick factory). At 10 a. m. the transport stopped. All those whom the Germans had not managed to take away were sent away [home]. The people who were taken to the area of the Tyazhilovo [Tyazhilov] (brick factory) were surrounded by Germans, the graves were ready. A selection started: the elderly and the women were put together (into one column), the rest (youngsters?)-into the second column, and the children-into the third column. A Gestapo officer ordered everyone to strip naked. The Gestapo men piled the clothes in a single pile. The first column was shot by machine-gun fire at the pit; some people from the first column survived. 50 women were ordered by the Gestapo commander to enter the pits alive. All those who refused to comply with this order were thrown into the pit and were buried alive in the pit. The second column was shot in the pit [although] some of these people were cut in half with swords. The third column, the children's one, [was killed] by lethal injections…Some of the children were killed by having their heads smashed against the ground or against trees… [or] were torn apart…
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-54-1236 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19688
Tyazhilov Brick Factory
בית חרושת ליצור לבנים
Murder Site
Ukraine (USSR)
49.239;28.476
Site of Murder of Vinnitsa Jews
BStU HA IX/11 ARCHIV ZUV 53, Akte 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 copy YVA TR.10 / 3651