Murder story of Pushkin Jews in the Ekaterininsky Park in Pushkin

After the war, I began to collect testimonies about the activity of the German Fascist occupational authorities in Pushkin. My purpose was to research and develop the subject, “Pushkin County during the years of the Great Patriotic War.” I met numerous residents of Pushkin who had survived the German occupational regime, and who had witnessed the occupants’ execution of peaceful civilians ... … she saw German solders with light machineguns in their hands driving a huge crowd of Jews, about 800 people – women, the elderly, children – along Komsomolskaya Street towards Ekaterininsky Palace. She saw her Jewish neighbor in the crowd and shouted to him: “Uncle Semyon, where are they taking you to?” A Fascist pushed her into the crowd of those condemned to death. Then all the Jews shouted: “She is Russian, don’t touch her, let her go!” The Fascist grabbed [her] by the collar and threw her at the sharp stakes of an iron railing ... When relating the story, she cried and said was sorry ... for those elderly people, women and children, who died a tormenting death. In my archive (not yet organized) there is a story told by witnesses, that when the Fascists were driving the Jews to the shooting site, they [the Jews] were singing a sad song and the children were joining in without suspecting that each step they took was leading them to their death. The shooting was perpetrated across from Alexandrovsky Palace located in Ekaterininsky Park, opposite its southern building known as Alexandrovsky, where the Tsar Alexander III used to stop by during his trips from Gatchina. Witnesses related that even lightly wounded Jews were thrown alive into the trench, prepared in advance, so earth could still be seen moving the following day.