Ryasna | Mogilev

Execution of Jews in Ryasna

1 Execution site(s)

Kind of place before:

Field

Memorials:

Yes

Period of occupation:

1941-1943

Witness interview

Ivan N.: “The starost came to me and told me to take a shovel for burying the Jews. When I got there, the shooting hadn’t finished yet. There were two Germans shooting Jews in groups of three at the bottom of the ravine. The other Jews were waiting next to the ravine under guard. They had to undress in groups of three and went down alone in the ravine in their underwear. They were shot standing up. There were women, men and children.” (Eyewitness N° 596, interviewed in Ryasna, on April 24, 2012)

Soviet archives

“In March 1942, a German punitive detachment of 30 or 40 personnel arrived in the village of Ryasna. Helped by the local police, they rounded up the whole Jewish population, including refugees - women, men, children, the elderly - and transported them to a ravine located 1.5 km east of the village. The Jews were shot there with machine guns. Before the shooting, their clothes and shoes were taken. They had to lay down in their underwear in previously dug graves where they were shot with machine guns. That day, 600 innocent Soviet civilians, inhabitants of Ryasna, were killed”. [Act of Soviet extraordinary comission, drawn up on November 05, 1944; RG-22.002M.7021-688/37]

Nearby villages

• Dranukha
• Chernevka

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