On 19. Oct 2021, Heikki Heinonen wrote
(in article<
1vstmg589oqf0if61...@4ax.com>):
"Most of the Jewish population of the cities, towns, and villages of the
province of Dnepropetrovsk had been murdered by March 1942. In August 1941
hundreds of the Jews of Piatikhatka and neighboring townships were brought to
the Glavaogneupor mine, where some were shot and others were thrown alive
into the mineshaft.”
s.200 Arad: "The Holocaust in Soviet Union”
"Over 3,000 Jews remained in the town of Artemovsk when it fell to the
Germans on October 29, 1941. When, on December 21, a fire broke out in the
semi-ruined building belonging to the municipal theater, the town’s
military commander, Major von Tsobel, announced that the Jews were
responsible and ordered them to report on January 9, 1942, at the municipal
gardens, for transfer to some remote location. Some 3,000 Jews turned up, and
these were crowded into the cellars of several buildings, where they were
held for a couple of days with no food or water. They were then taken to an
alabaster mine about 2 kilometers out of town, where they were forced into a
narrow tunnel, at the end of which was the mine face. Their exit was blocked
by a brick wall erected inside the tunnel’s entrance and they all starved
and suffocated to death. According to a Soviet committee of inquiry,
appointed to examine the place on October 3, 1943, after the region was
liberated:
After the wall was removed, we discovered the rest of the tunnel. . . . At
the end of the tunnel was an elliptical cave about 20 meters long and 30
meters wide and 3 or 4 meters high. The cave was full of human corpses,
pressed up against each other with their backs to the tunnel’s entrance.
The corpses were pressed so close to each other that they appeared at first
glance to be a single solid form. The last rows of corpses were piled against
the first ones and pressed up against the cave wall. . . . Due to the unique
conditions in the cave (dry air, steady low temperatures, porous base) the
corpses had undergone a mummification process and most of them had been
excellently preserved. . . . It was possible to see on most of the corpses a
white arm band on which a Star of David had been painted or stitched, around
the left sleeve of their coats. The clothes of some of the corpses were
colorful, like the clothes usually worn by gypsies. Most of the corpses were
of women and children of various ages. There were also some corpses of
handicapped people with crutches and walking sticks. In evaluating the size
of the cave and two or three layers of corpses, the committee has determined
that there were some 3,000 corpses.
The report also pointed out that an examination revealed that some of the
corpses bore signs of gunfire. Presumably, therefore, the people were being
shot at as they were forced into the tunnel, and those in the latter rows
would have absorbed most of the bullets. The Einsatzgruppen report for March
6, 1942, states that Sonderkommando 4b had executed 1,317 people, of whom
1,224 were Jews, and that “with this action, the district of Artemovsk was
also freed of Jews.”
These cruel methods were also used in other parts of the region. A Soviet
report on German terrorism in the Stalino district describes the murder of
Jews in the town of Enakevo, northeast of Stalino: “The Jewish population
of Jenakevo consisted of 555 men, women, and children. . . . The Jews were
placed in trucks and taken about 20 kilometers away to the Gorlovka district,
where they were thrown alive into a mine shaft, until they died an agonizing
death.” Jews remaining in the other towns and townships of Stalino were
also murdered.”
s. 213-214 ibid.
"By the fall of 1941, the Soviet leadership had irrefutable information that
masses of Jews were being murdered in the territories occupied by the
Germans. This information came from Soviet soldiers, who had spent months in
German rear areas and had succeeded in reaching Soviet territories after
their units had been defeated in battle. On their way through the German rear
area, they had witnessed or heard of the mass executions. Many soldiers had
escaped German captivity and returned to the Soviet front lines. As POWs,
they had witnessed the murders and were often taken to dig the pits in which
the victims were buried. All returning soldiers were interrogated by army
intelligence and the NKVD This information was passed through military
political channels (Commissars) or through the NKVD, to the Soviet
authorities in Moscow. According to the October 31, 1941, report of the
interrogation of Lieutenants Polishuk and Antsiferov, who escaped German
captivity and crossed the front lines:
When we were in the Pow camp in the suburb of Nikolaev, we saw the way in
which Germans shot Jews who had been brought to the site, entire families.
There were among them many women and children. The wounded among the adults
and almost all the children were thrown into the pits when they were still
alive, and this is how they were buried. . . . In Stalino, all the Jews were
brought together, supposedly to be sent to work. . . . We saw how a large
group of them, several thousands of people, were shot alongside one of the
mineshafts.
German prisoners of war also provided information on mass murders. By
November 1941 Soviet authorities knew that thousands of Jews had been mur-
dered in Lvov, Minsk, Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, and other towns.”
s.554 ibid.
Cheers,
Pekka de G.