Murder Story of Młynów Jews at the Murawica Dam

In September 1942 the Germans ordered local peasants to prepare a large pit in the valley between the towns of Młynów and Murawica, (near the Murawica dam, known as the kruzhuk), about 1 kilometer from Młynów. Shortly afterward, all the Jews who worked outside the ghetto on various farms were ordered to return. Some returned willingly to be with their families, while others had to be taken into the ghetto by force by the Ukrainian auxiliary police. On September 22 a squad of Security Police and SD from Równe arrived in several trucks in Młynów. Then, under the command of the German civil administrator of Młynów, named Schneider, together with the Ukrainian auxiliary police, headed by Dimitrii Novosad, they approached the ghetto and surrounded it. Loudspeakers announced to the ghetto's inmates that it was forbidden to leave the ghetto. All the inmates of the ghetto – men, women, children, and the elderly - were forced onto the street. Then they were forcibly loaded in groups onto trucks under the pretext that they were going to be relocated. Afterward, the Jews were taken under the guard of Ukrainian auxiliary police and Gendarmerie (German rural order police) men to a site near the Murawica dam, where pits had been prepared. The victims were forced to strip naked and lie facedown in the pit. They were shot to death in the back of the head with machine-guns. Then another group of Jews was positioned on top of the bodies and shot to death. Apparently the Germans photographed this murder operation. Afterward, the clothes of the victims were taken to Młynów and put into a storehouse. According to the ChGK document, 980 Jews were shot to death on this day.