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Murder story of Gritsev Jews in the Gritsev Forest

Murder Site
Gritsev
Ukraine (USSR)
Murder site of Gritsev's Jews. Photographer: Eugene Shnaider, 2013.
Murder site of Gritsev's Jews. Photographer: Eugene Shnaider, 2013.
Genesis Philanthropy Group project, Copy YVA 14616094
On August 4, 1941, in the early morning, a large group of Jews was taken from their homes in the ghetto to the local school building, where they were kept in several classrooms. During a selection that was carried out right away 286 men were separated from their families, loaded onto trucks, and taken to the Gritsev Forest, about 3 kilometers from the town. Deep in the forest, near a stone quarry, they were made to strip naked and shot to death by the 1st Battalion of the 10th SS Infantry Regiment. Their clothes were taken away. According to one testimony in the afternoon a group of women was also taken from the school and driven by truck to the same site, forced to strip naked, and shot to death, apparently by the same unit. In the evening those who remained in the school building, mainly small children and old women, were allowed to return to their homes in the ghetto. According to the same testimony about a month later the mass graves in the Gritesev Forest were found by accident.
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Lidia (Drel) Kleyman, who was born in Gritsev in 1931 and lived there during the war years, testified:
… The first mass murder in Gritsev was carried out in the Gritsev Forest. It was … in August 1941…. All [sic] the Jews of this little town were driven into the school building and kept in several classrooms…. The men were separated from the others right away. They were loaded onto trucks and taken away. We didn't know yet where they were taken, while the women were kept in the school. I, along with my baby sister, who was then one year and ten months old, was also held in this school.… We were kept in this school approximately until noon… on the lowest floor of the building. Then they [the Ukrainian auxiliary policemen] did the following: they moved all those who had been left in the school from the classrooms on the lowest floor to classrooms higher up. While they were carrying this out, they took away the women and young girls. They were immediately loaded onto trucks and taken away. We remained in the school until evening, we children and old women.… In the evening one of the senior Ukrainian policemen came and told us that we were being allowed to return to the ghetto. Of course, after these horrors, after this disaster, after a day of hunger, we could barely make our way back to the ghetto. In the ghetto we found empty, looted, ruined houses… we didn't know for a long time where the men and women had been taken. Time passed, apparently about a month, until the clothes and blood of the victims that rose from the graves to the surface of the earth were found by chance in the forest. It turned out that they had been shot to death here, in the Gritsev Forest, about 2-3 kilometers from Gritsev, deep in the forest. There was a stone quarry there…. Many recognized the clothes of their dear ones, but these clothes had already been worn out since the good clothes had been taken away. Who took them – the Germans or the Ukrainians – of course we didn't know. But this indicates that all the Jews were made to take off their clothes and were shot to death naked. It also meant that they [the Germans or the Ukrainians] managed to pillage, to take the clothes of the victims before their death….
YVA O.3 / 4019
Gritsev
forest
Murder Site
49.966;27.216
Elizaveta Bilyk was born near Gritsev in 1935 and was living in the town during the war years
USC SHOAH FOUNDATION, 29299 copy YVA O.93 / 29299