Slavuta Road Related Communities
# Follow us
Languages
English
עברית
Русский
español
Deutsch
Français
ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
RESEARCH & COLLECTIONS
COMMEMORATION
EDUCATION & E-LEARNING
MUSEUMS & EXHIBITIONS
RIGHTEOUS
Murder Story of Sudilkov Jews on the Slavuta Road
Murder Site
From Sudikov to Slavuta Road
Ukraine (USSR)
On August 20, 1941 members of the 2nd company of the 45th Reserve Police Battalion, together with Ukrainian auxiliary policemen, drove many Jewish residents of the town out of their houses onto the street. According to one testimony, after they had been collected at Bazaranaya [Market] Square, a selection was carried out - women with little children were put aside, while men, women without children, and young girls were loaded onto trucks and taken outside the town, to the forest near the road leading from Sudilkov to the town of Slavuta. Upon their arrival at the murder site the Jews were taken in groups to the pit (or bomb crater) and shot to death in the back of the head by members of that 2nd company. According to the German report from the same month, 471 Jews were shot to death in this murder operation; during postwar judicial proceedings a West German court referred to at least 80 Jewish victims, men and women.
Related Resources
German Reports / Romanian Reports
ChGK Soviet Reports
From the judicial proceedings against Engelbert Kreuzer, former company commander in the 45th Reserve Police Battalion
22 March, 1972, Regensburg
From the indictment against Engelbert Kreuzer … On a day whose date it has not been possible to determine, when the 2nd company of the 45th Reserve Police Battalion was stationed in Salawuta [Slavuta] (from August 15 to September 3, 1941)… a murder operation against Jews was also carried out in Sudilkov by the members of this company headed by Engelbert Kreuzer. The Jewish residents of this town, women and men of every age, those who had been found, were driven out of their homes by company members assisted by members of the Ukrainian auxiliary police, collected at a square in the town, and taken by truck to an area outside the town, located to the right of the road leading from Sudilkov to Slavuta, where there was a pit, probably a bomb crater. They [the Jewish victims] were murdered there by the members of the 2nd company by being shot in the back of the head so that they fell into the pit. Here too [in Sudilkov] those taken to be shot after the first victims experienced the same fate as their predecessors since they were forced to walk the last 50 meters from the truck to the shooting site and could clearly see their imminent death before their eyes. Thus, at least 80 Jews of all ages, women and men, were killed during this murder operation. At the time when the shooting was still going on the defendant Kreuzer summoned one of his subordinates … and ordered him to shoot a woman who was sitting huddled at the edge of the pit or in the pit itself, crying, with her hands over her face. When [the subordinate] hesitated, Kreuzer pointed with his finger to the back of the woman's head where … he was supposed to shoot. …. Afterwards, he [the subordinate] shot the woman to death.
It is possible that the defendant Kreuzer gave the order to carry out this murder operation following a specific battalion order from above.
ZENTRALE STELLE, LUDWIGSBURG B 162/6651 copy YVA TR.10 / 729
From the reports of the Higher SS and Police Chief South Friedrich Jeckeln
From the telegraph report of the Higher SS and Police Chief South Friedrich Jeckeln, August 21, 1941 Results: … the 45th Police Battalion shot to death … . … 471 Jews in Sudilkov. ….
ZENTRALE STELLE, LUDWIGSBURG BAND 397 copy YVA O.53 / 128
From Sudikov to Slavuta Road
road
Murder Site
Ukraine (USSR)
50.166;27.133