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Murder Story of Novaya Odessa Jews at the Novaya Odessa Airfield
Murder Site
Novaya Odessa
Ukraine (USSR)
In late September 1941 a German unit entered the Novaya Odessa ghetto. Together with local auxiliaries, the Germans carried out a selection of ghetto inmates. The Jews who had professions that the Germans could use were separated, together with their families, from the other inmates. The latter, numbering approximately 30, were ordered to take their belongings and valuables, on the pretext that they were being relocated in order to work. Instead they were taken a short distance from the town and shot in ditches, in the vicinity of a place that had been an airfield before the war. Before being shot the victims were forced to strip naked and to hand over their possessions.
In early October 1941 the remaining ghetto inmates were divided into two groups, taken to the same place, and shot in the same manner. The perpetrators of these massacres which claimed the lives of a total of 125 victims were members of the German military police (Feldgendarmerie)and, probably, also of a unit of Sonderkommando 10b of Einsatzgruppe D, and local collaborators.
The murder of those Jews from Novaya Odessa and the County who managed to survive the large-scale massacres of September and October 1941 but were apprehended later by Germans and local auxiliaries apparently continued at the same location well into 1942.
Related Resources
ChGK Soviet Reports
ChGK Soviet Reports from Novaya Odessa
… In September 1941 Hitlerites collected all the Jewish population in one place, where the latter were subjected to torture, beatings, and bullying and, afterward, were shot in groups. A total of 125 people were shot in this way.
The residents of the town of Novaya Odessa, Stepan Gavrilovich Bogza and Sarra Vladimirovna Bass, testified [as follows]: "The county head of Novaya Odessa, Thomas, [ordered] the collection of the entire Jewish population of the county into one place and established a ghetto.
In this ghetto the Jewish population was subjected to all kinds of tortures….
Afterwards, on Thomas' orders, policemen took the Jews, including the elderly and children, in groups and shot them outside the town near the former airfield. In this way three groups consisting of a total of 125 people were taken away and shot. All the belongings, valuables, and clothes were taken [from the Jews] and sent to Germany"….
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-68-182 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19962; JM/19963
From the ChGK Report about the German atrocities in Novaya Odessa:
…On September [the date is illegible], 1941 at 4 p. m. a group of 125 Soviet Jewish civilians was brutally shot by German-Fascist murder squads at the Novaya Odessa square as suspects in the organization of partisan activities against the German-Fascist occupiers…
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-68-182 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19962; JM/19963
From the Testimony of Ivan Vaziyan, who was born in 1900:
…I know that the Jewish population was gathered in one place; I worked near this house [where the ghetto was established] and I saw the Germans taking a group of Jews to a field to be shot. They were told they were going to dig trenches, but instead were shot there. This group, of 33 people, was shot at the end of September 1941 I know well that the remaining two groups were shot [too] because I often drove past this house [where the Jews were concentrated] and saw all the Jews in the courtyard, where they were gathered. I knew them all by face since I had worked as a supply manager for building and repairing schools from 1937 until the arrival of the Germans, and the Jews performed [various kinds of] work: they worked as teachers, glaziers, house-painters, and carried out other kinds of work. Because of this I knew all of them and saw them in that courtyard. After some time none of them were there any longer -all 125 of them, including 50 evacuees from Bessarabia, were shot.
All the Jews were shot because they were suspected of organizing the partisan movement and clandestine operations against the Germans.
Thus, a group of Soviet Jewish civilians was shot by the German-Fascist executioners in late September and in early October 1941…
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-68-182 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19962; JM/19963
From the Testimony of Mikhail Tsibulenko, who was born in 1914:
…German murder squads took the Jews in groups…irrespective of their age - women, the elderly, and children - to the outskirts of the town of Novaya Odessa, forced them to strip naked, placed them at trenches, and shot them. Small nursing infants and even [some of the] adults were buried alive. They beat with rifle butts those women and elderly people who did not want to lie down in the trenches where they were to be shot by the German barbarians. The shootings of the Soviet civilians were ordered by the county head, an ethnic German colonist named Georgi Lvovich Thomas. When he was drunk, he shot at a group of Jewish civilians…
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-68-182 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19962; JM/19963
From the Testimony of Nina Sheludchenko, who was born in 1922:
...[The Germans] displayed an especially brutal attitude toward the Jewish civilians. They were taken in groups of 50-60, irrespective of age - women, elderly people, and little nursing infants - to an area outside the town, forced to strip naked, and then shot at some ditches. There were cases where people were thrown into the ditches and buried alive. The county head of the town of Novaya Odessa, the German colonist Georgi Lvovich Thomas, was in charge of the mass shootings. When he was drunk, he went to the shooting and fired his revolver into a crowd of Jewish civilians. The policemen Pyotr Fyodorovich Makalish, Pavel Leontyevich Ostrovskiy, Vasilii Petrov, the police chief of Novaya Odessa, Vladimir Kharitonovich Benyukh, and the village elder of Novaya Odessa, Dmitrii Vasilyevich Kozachenko, also participated in the shootings as perpetrators…
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-68-182 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19962; JM/19963
From the Testimony of Sara Bass, who was born in 1898:
…Local county head of Novaya Odessa, the German colonist Georgi Lvovich Thomas, received an order from the chief of the Nikolayev SD to collect the entire Jewish population and to establish a ghetto which was, in fact, established …In this ghetto the Jewish population was subjected to all kinds of tortures…
After these tortures [the Jews] were taken away in groups…and shot outside the town near the former airfield. In this way the German executioners shot three groups of Jews - one group in late September 1941 and two groups in early October 1941, the total [number of victims was] 125 …
Of my relatives my father Olko (?) Belenkyi (?), my mother Sheva (?, probably Bat-Sheva), and my sister Polina were shot, I was also in the ghetto but I escaped…
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-68-182 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19962; JM/19963
From the Testimony of Stepan Bogza, who was born in 1916:
…The local county head of Novaya Odessa, the ethnic German colonist Georgi Lvovich Thomas, received an order from the SD chief of Nikolayev to collect all the Jewish population and to establish a ghetto. Local county head Thomas and his senior policeman, Vladimir Kharitonovich Benyukh, did indeed establish such a ghetto, in which the Jewish population from the entire Novaya Odessa County was collected. The Jewish population was subjected to all kinds of tortures in this ghetto…
Afterwards…[the Jews], accompanied by [county] head Thomas, senior policeman Vladimir Kharitonovich Benyukh, Nikolai Mikhailov, Vasilii Kolozin, and other policemen, were taken in groups and shot outside the town near the former airfield. In this way three groups of Jews were brutally shot in late September and in early October 1941…
GARF, MOSCOW R-7021-68-182 copy YVA M.33 / JM/19962; JM/19963
Novaya Odessa
Airfield
Murder Site
Ukraine (USSR)
47.309;31.773