Murder Story of Odessa Jews in Arkadiyevskaya Balka

...I learned about the Jewish grave in late 1960s from a Colonel Vladlen Sokolov, my house neighbor and the old resident of Novo-Arkadievskaya Road. In mid-1950 the military decided to build a residential house in the center of Golopuzovka, the slum outskirts of Odessa, on the both sides of Novo-Arkadievskaya Road, with Shampanskiy lane as its axis. But already in the beginning of the excavation of the earth for a base, a horrible discovery awaited the construction workers-huge amount of human bones at about one meter depth. The construction works were ceased and a burial mound was raised on top of the mass grave discovered by construction workers. The natives of Golopuzovka recalled that during the occupation of Odessa the right side of Arkadievskaya Balka with the open shafts of the abandoned mining galleries at which formerly shell rock stone was mined, was used by Romanians as the site of the execution of the hostages, who at the start of the occupation were mostly Jewish. Hence the mound came to be called "Jewish grave". In 2017 an absolutely chance meeting at the Hippodrome with Tamara Aleksandrovna Urchanova took place... Tamara posses an excellent memory. Thus she remembers that "there was a prospective shaft of a deep mining gallery...Many people perished there in the mine pits"... "During the occupation we often heard shots in the evenings...It was on April 7, when Romanians brought another group...of hostages with children...Even though I saw this nightmare just once, but a picture of a huge mine and of Romanians placing doomed to death-whether a child or elderly-for Romanians it was all the same-at the mouth of the mining gallery still stands before my eyes as if it was yesterday. Then we managed to rescue a Jewish family-the grandmother and her two grandsons. Her name was Fira and her patronymic was Yakovlevna. The names of her grandsons were Romka and Yasha. Why Fira with her [grandsons] managed to escape? Because as we saw later Romanians were waiting for somebody on that day. The evening started to descend, the arrested people were wandering back and forth and Romanians pushed them with the rifle-buts into the crowd shouting "Repele! Repele!" There was a field around the place and the flower-shoots-here peonies, there a bit of roses...Then in April it was very warm and it rained heavily and the planted peonies shot in the high... There were no flowers, but the peony bush by itself reached almost my waist...There was a big, sown tree near the mining gallery and Fira made her mind. She used a moment when the guard turned away and rushed with the children to peonies bushes. They crawled unnoticed by Romanians behind the tree and hided there. Fira and the children were very lucky that on that day Romanians did not have the service dogs. When we children stood and looked in horror on what was going on, my mother got stealthy to the escapees and started to show with the hand where they should crawl to save themselves. They had to crawl to a large pit, which in fall was filled with the leaves. Romka jumped [into it] followed by his little brother and by grandmother Fira. Our neighbor, uncle Khoma approached the pit and said "Sit and do not move". Fira with the children already hided in terror in the corner of the pit. At that time two or three cars approached the mining gallery from the direction of Fontantskaya Road along Zoopark Street. Drunken officers, Romanians and Germans emerged from them...Laughter...Cries...Commands... Guys, it cannot be explained, it is still a terrible memory! What a hysterical outcry of the doomed people arouse! There were even families with children. They understood that their last hour arrived, that they are seeing each other for the last time, that now they are going to die for nothing. Romanians placed the hostages at the edge of the "shooting" prospecting shaft and opened fire upon them. The people were holding out, sticking together, but at the end fell into the mine with terrible cries. Mother told us that we had to quickly get out of there and also Romanian guard shouted at us: "Shterge!-Get lost!" otherwise it would be-here he pointed the rifle at us-"Drr! Drr!" Suddenly a little girl ran to us crying "Mother! Mother!" She stretched her hands to my mother Natasha and she took her in the arms. Then also a Jewish mother of a child appeared from behind the tree where Fira was hiding before her. Surprisingly Romanian guard who saw her did not shoot her, apparently there were human beings among them too, but pushed her toward us and all of us ran into our yard...