Murder story of Pluzhnoye Jews in the Storoniche Area

… In June 1942 before they [the Jews] were taken to be shot… on orders of the Gendarmerie [rural police], [Ukrainian auxiliary] policemen from the nearby villages gathered in Pluzhnoye. They got drunk in the canteen of the [Pluzhnoye] County administrative authority [building]. Those incarcerated [i.e. the Jewish population of Pluzhnoye] had first been locked into [a Soviet military] barrack and not allowed out. At that time I was working as a driver at the Pluzhone machine and tractor station. The head of the station,… Karasiev … called me and ordered me to fill my truck with fuel and drive to the Gendarmerie building, I didn't know why. There were 5 trucks near the Gendarmerie building. 4 [Ukrainian] policemen sat down in my truck and one German officer… sat down in the cabin [of the truck]. All of them, as well as the other policemen, were drunk. I was ordered to drive to the camp where the imprisoned [Jews] were being held. Screaming, moaning, and the crying of children, women, and old people were heard in the camp. The policemen, together with the Germans [members of Gendarmerie], forced them onto the trucks, beating the civilians with rifle butts. One after another the trucks drove to the shooting site. The pit was surrounded with [Ukrainian] policemen, at its south end there were lined up [members of] the Gendarmerie who shot these Soviet civilians to death; they forced them into the pit, where they were shot to death. The heart-rending crying and moaning [of the victims] were heard from far away. A total of 150 people were killed [on that day]…

We, the undersigned … compiled this report about the atrocities committed by the German-Fascist occupiers and their accomplices in Pluzhnoye County…. On May 13, 1944 … there took place the opening of the grave of Soviet civilians tortured to death by the German occupiers that was located south of the village of Storoniche…. Men, women, and little children were among those who had been shot to death, it was difficult to establish the exact number of the murdered Soviet civilians since [by that time] most of the bodies had decomposed.... But judging from the size of the pit and its capacity, … and also from eyewitness testimonies, … at least 150 civilians were shot to death in this pit. Among them were 30 women, 50 children between the ages of 4 and 5, 25 children [teenagers] between the ages of 10 and 16, and a number of men of different ages. According to the testimony of … Adam Tsetsynskyi … in July [sic for June] 1942 the traitors [i.e. Ukrainian auxiliary police who collaborated with the Germans]… these policemen, together with Germans, carried out the shooting of the Soviet civilians, forcing men and women with children in their arms into the pit with rifle butts, while they themselves lined up at the south edge of the pit. On the order [given by a Gendarmerie officer] they [members of Gendarmerie] shot the victims to death with machineguns and rifles. The heart-rending crying and moaning of those being shot to death were heard during and after this murder operation. For the next two days the local [Ukrainian] population was not allowed to approach the site of this atrocity.…