1 Execution site(s)
Mykola D. : "Jews were killed in the ravines near the Bug. Their bodies were thrown under the ice." (Witness N°1039, interviewed in December, 2010)
In February 1942, 20 people were shot and put under the ice of the Bug River, near the mill N°1, situated near Bratslav town. In February 1943, 8 Romanian Jews, including 3 women and 5 men, were shot. Their names remain unknown. The mass shooting took place near the MTS buildings; their bodies were buried in the MTS yard. [Act of the Soviet extraordinary commission, RG-22.002M.7021-54/1241]
[…executions took place in the Bratslav forest. The Jews (men, women, and children) were forced to undress and had to kneel down in front of the big pit. After, they were shot with a bullet in the nape of the neck by the SS soldiers. The bodies fell directly into the pit. Then, the burning lime was spread all over the bodies and long planks were put over them. According to my husband, the OT members had to jump on the planks in order to pack down the bodies. After, as soon as the planks were correctly placed, another group of Jews could be shot. They proceeded in the same manner until the pit was full of Jews. [Deposition of Elfriede M. born in 1900, wife to Alfred M., B162-6150]
Bratslav is a city situated on the Bug river, south of Vinnytsia. In the 17th century Bratslav became an important Jewish religious center. Early in the century followers of the false messiah Sabbatai Zevi found refuge in the town, while the founder of Bratslav Chassidism, Rabbi Nakhman (also known as Nakhman of Bratslav), lived there in the following century. In 1939, Bratslav’s 1,010 Jews comprised 25.4 percent of the town’s total population.
In September 1941, the town became part of the Romanian occupation zone of Transnistria and Jewish deportees from Bessarabia and Bukovina were transported to it. About 750 Jews from Bratslav itself and from the county were imprisoned in the ghetto. On the night between December 31, 1941 and January 1, 1942 most of the inmates of the Bratslav ghetto were sent to the Pechera death camp, although some Jews were left in Bratslav to carry out road construction work. Jewish deportees from Bukovina and Bessarabia and from various regions of Ukraine were incarcerated in two camps established in Bratslav in August 1942 to provide labor for German construction firms. Most of the inmates of the camps in Bratslav were murdered in several execution operations in 1942-1943 near Raygorod. Jewish children from an orphanage are also killed by Romanians in February 1942, and their corpses thrown in the Bug river.
Read Yahad-In Unum’s report of the research trip in this area
Go to the Bukovina Jewish Heritage website
Do you have additional information regarding a village that you would like to share with Yahad ?
Please contact us at contact@yahadinunum.org
or by calling Yahad – In Unum at +33 (0) 1 53 20 13 17