Ukraine Trip #20 – Region of Dnepropetrovsk

May 22- June 3, 2010

Participants:

Patrick Desbois (team Leader), Geoffrey Lauby (deputy team leader), Alexis Kosarevsky (interpreter), Svetlana Birulova (interpreter), Mikhail Strutinsky (ballistics expert), Denis Mouravitsky (investigator), Vincent Le Gal (Cameraman), David Merlin-Dufey (photographer), Marie Moutier (script).

Villages surveyed:

Krassyné, Novojytomyr, Zlatooustivka, Kamianka, Izloutchyste, Nova Zoria, Vilne, Ielizavetpilia, Jovtnevé, Novopodilske, Novovitebske, Jovte, Novi Kovner, Odroubok, Marïivka, Ievdokïivka, Ingoulets, Kryvy Rig.

The research trip was conducted primarily in the former Jewish district of Stalindorf (now Jovtnevé), an agricultural region dominated by the steppe, east of the huge industrial city Kryvy Rig. This is the first time that a Yahad team has gone to an Oblast in eastern Ukraine. One feature of this region to highlight is the virtual absence of any source material on the area, in either the German or the Soviet archives. For this reason, we first focused our research on the former Jewish kolkhozes.

Prewar Jewish kolkhozes

Before the war, the District of Stalindorf consisted mainly of Jewish kolkhozes. The Jewish community settled in the area in two stages: a first wave in the 19th century – Kamienka was founded in 1808, Novopodilske, Novi Kovner and Novovitebske in 1847; then a second wave between the wars. The village of Krassyné was founded by Chioma and Bobroch,a Jewish pharmacist and accountant in March 1924. Jews, Ukrainians and ethnic Germans coexisted in these colonies. The village of Kamianka, for example, was composed of three kolkhozes: Ukrainian (“the red partisan”), German (“hope”) and Jewish (“Stalin”). Each nationality had their own school and cemetery. However, some villages had a single kolkhoze, managed by a Jewish administration, but with the three nationalities working together: such was the case in Krassyné, a prosperous settlement with a cinema, library, radio station and a newspaper – in Ukrainian. Few true differences existed between the villagers: a common everyday language, a shared kolkhoze; marriages between Jews and Ukrainians were frequent.

The dynamism of these kolkhozes contrasted with the development of other villages of the region: Kamianka had electricity, which was lacking in surrounding communities.  Agro Joint, an American organization created in 1924, participated in the growth of these settlements, providing supplies, building materials, all of which allowed these collective farms survive the great famine of 1932-1933. A witness, Piotr, born in 1925, fled the Holodomor and moved with his family to Novovitebsk in 1933, where they received 50 kg of wheat upon their arrival.

In the village of Ielizavetpilia, Nikolai, born in 1925, told of the great famine of 1932-1933. The brigades went from one house to another to seize food, corpses lay in the streets and the people ate seeds to survive. Those who resisted the brigades were sent as a kulak to the gulag. Their goods were then auctioned including their furniture, clothing and livestock. This was an exceptional testimony, which enabled us to re-contextualize the situation in Ukraine prior to the beginning of another wave of violence, that of the Nazi occupation, ten years later.

The implementation of extermination

Much of the Jews managed to flee before the arrival of German troops. The evacuation, orchestrated at the local level by starostes and the kolkhoz leaders, affected first the industries of the Dnepropetrovsk region, farm equipment, livestock, and onsite personnel. Some balked at leaving their home and the lack of carts and horses did not allow the evacuation of everyone: in general, older people and the children of the village remained.  Others, on the road toward the east, were confronted with the German bombing. This was the case for the family of Klavdia, born in 1930, fleeing Novovitebske: only she and her mother managed to cross the Dnieper and the rest of the family had to return to the village, where they were subsequently executed.

Upon arrival in the Jewish settlements, the Germans appointed a new staroste, a policeman in every village, and prompted the Ukrainians and ethnic Germans to take over the kolkhozes which had been abandoned at the beginning of the hostilities.

In the district, few ghettos were established. Where it occurred, they consisted mostly of a concentration of houses of several Jewish families, as was the case in Kamianka (open ghetto, without guards but the Jews wore white armbands as a sign of identification).  More common was the gathering of all Jews in the same building – a stable at Marïievka, a theater at Ingoulets – before the shooting.  Jews who were fit to perform work were sent beforehand to work on the Kryvy Rig / Dnipropetrovsk road.

In the Stalindorf district, a site was used for the shooting of Jews from different villages. Vasyl, born in 1930, watched the column of Jews from Kamianka traveling on foot to the ravine located a few miles several kilometers away in Zlatooustivka before being chased away by the Germans.  When he returned to the scene, he found a pit covered, still stirring, surrounded by scattered clothes, shoes, spoons. Evgeny, born in 1926, witnesses the liquidation of Jews Ingoulets. As he looked after the carts at the kolkhoze, he was requisitioned to follow the column of Jews with a wagon to the site of the execution, and to collect their clothes after they had been shot, then store them in the synagogue at Shyroké. We returned there with the witness to follow the different steps of the execution. We were able to reconstruct the following scenario showing the gathering of Jews before the shooting:

The children of the Holocaust

More particular is the fate of the children. At Krassyne, they were locked in a ghetto apart, closed, without any adults.  It was located near a well regularly visited by the villagers, who took the opportunity to throw food to the children.  There were 120 Jewish children when the ghetto was created. They were no more than sixty on the day of the shooting. At Jovtnevé, children were thrown into the wells. The most disturbing case is that of the half-Jewish children of Novovitebsk, as narrated by Vladimir, born in 1935. One morning, while the adults worked in the fields, the Germans entered the village nursery school, and removed all of the half-Jewish children, as  designated by the local police. They were driven in a large cart to the outskirts of the village, where a grave had been dug beforehand. The Germans aligned the oldest at the edge of the pit and shot them. The heads of the younger infants were smashed against the wheels of the cart and their bodies were thrown into the pit. Vladimir stood in the bushes with some friends and saw the shooting of the half-Jewish children – some among them his cousins. Several days later, he came across another cart full of Jewish children. This is the first time that we encounter a Kinderaktionen.

During this research trip, we interviewed 46 witnesses in 18 villages and towns. Of the 10 execution sites found, three had a memorial, sometimes inaccurately placed