Murder story of Mglin Jews in the Public Garden in Mglin

...And so on March 2, 1942 at 8 o'clock in the morning the Germans shot more than 500 people [Jews] were shot. The day they were shot it was cold and windy. All of them were forced to undress and then taken naked 50 meters towards the pit. The young children were thrown into the pit alive. First they were smashed against a birch tree and then thrown into the pit. Gold teeth were extracted by force. There was another brutal case: when Kurfman was being taken to the pit a member of Vlasov's troops said to him: "Do you have a gold watch?"He said: "Yes". "Give it here" he [the Vlasovite] said. He [Kurfman] said:"No, I won't" and threw the watch against the wall so that it broke into pieces. Then the policeman began beating him, poked his eyes out with a bayonet, and rolled him into the pit after he was dead. There were many people still alive in the pit: the pit remained alive for a long time. Children's voices were heard from there [,crying]:" Mummy, where are you?" and men's voices [saying] "Finish me off"… Seven people who had hidden were shot the next day after the [mass] shooting of the Jews. They were shot by the prison head [...].

On January 21, 1942 all the Jews of Mglin, around 600 in number, were imprisoned in the local jail. There they were kept in unsanitary conditions with neither heating nor food until March 2, 1942. On that date they were shot in the public garden The shooting began at 10 in the morning and lasted until mid-afternoon. First the men were shot and after them the women, children, and teenagers. They were forced to undress and to take off their shoes in a cold shed before they reached the shooting pit. Then they were forced toward the pit, where they were shot in the back of the head. Some of them, for example infants and children up to the age 3 – 4, were thrown into the pit alive. The grave of the people who were shot is located in the public garden close to the hospital.