Murder Story of Lipovets Jews in Berezovka

… In April 1942 German murderers from the Gendarmerie whose last names I do not know… took away the first group of Jews numbering 700 people…. An SS squad from Vinnitsa shot all the Jews. All the people taken to be shot were forced to strip, enter the pit, and lie facedown; then they were shot with submachine guns. The children who were shot were of various ages, including nursing infants. In the second grave at least 500 Jews were shot. The total number of those shot could be no less than 1,200-1,500 people. I personally witnessed the entire shooting process since I had been mobilized to dig the pits and bury the bodies….

… The Commission carried out an examination of the graves of Soviet civilians who were brutally murdered during the occupation by the German-Fascist occupiers. The graves were discovered in several locations, including… in the fields of Berezovka's Kalinin collective farm…. Most of the graves are of the same size-4.2-4.5 meters long and 2.2-2.5 meters wide…All of the graves are 2-2.5 meters deep…. The bodies are buried 1.2-1.5 meters deep. They are lying in the graves in two rows, some facedown, some on their side; some of the bodies (the female ones) are lying on their side, embracing their small children of up to one year old. All of the bodies are naked…. The corpses, that originated in 1941-1942, are in an advanced state of decomposition…. The bodies of people of both sexes and various ages-from children to elderly people - are piled up in several (3-4) layers in a grave and there is a large amount of decomposed blood between them which even penetrated the earth above the bodies. After the exhumation of the bodies there was a strong smell of putrefaction and decomposition. Traces of gunshot wounds [caused] by submachine guns and rifles were found on the bodies exhumed from the graves. The bodies in the lower layers were shot in several places - the injuries are of the most varied character: head wounds, thorax wounds, spinal wounds, abdominal wounds, and wounds of the extremities. Some of them were obviously lethal (penetrating head wounds), while many of the others can be classified as serious but not lethal. Some bodies of small children and teenagers showed traces of hemorrhaging and bruises were discovered on the heads, while smashed and crushed skulls indicated the impact of solid items, obviously the butts of submachine guns or rifles. Some of the children's bodies displayed no traces of violence…. Given the positions of the layered bodies in the graves, the absence of clothes on them, the large amount of blood next to the bodies, and the nature and number of wounds on the bodies in the lower layers, we arrive at the following conclusion: the murder victims had been forced to strip naked before being shot and forced to lie down alive in the graves in a certain order, after which they were mowed down by submachine guns. Another row of people was placed above… those already shot and was also shot down. Many of the victims did not die immediately but were buried half-alive, while some children were stunned by a blow to the head and also covered by earth while half-alive….

…In September 1941 a German SS murder squad rounded up the male population of the town of Lipovets. On that day 200 peaceful, innocent civilians were taken by those monsters and brutally shot on the territory of Berezovka village (in a field). Among those shot were the best, the most active men of the Soviet regime - Communists and Komsomol members, and also 17 POWs. The site for the shooting was prepared in advance and graves were dug. The people taken to be shot were forced to strip naked and to lie face down [in groups] of 20-30 people and await a shameful death by submachine gun fire at the hands of the bloody German executioners. Another, similar group of people was made to lie down on top of the first layer of the bodies, etc. and was shot in the same way. At that [same] place, on the territory of Berezovka village, in April 1942 800 Soviet civilians, mostly of Jewish origin, were taken out [of Lipovets] and shot in the [same] way. 167 peaceful civilians were brutally shot there in June 1942, that is [the total number of victims was] 1,167 defenseless women, children, and elderly people from the town of Lipovets and from the villages of Lipovets County…