1 Execution site(s)
Nikolay T.: "I had been requisitioned by the head of the kolkhoz to transport the Jews’ clothing to the warehouse on a cart. I travelled there and back twice. Some other inhabitants of Shumilino were also charged with stealing the valuables from all the houses. The Germans directed this operation. It happened before the shootings." (Witness N°485 interviewed in June 2011)
"In the district of Shumilino, during the occupation, 493 persons were shot and hanged (mostly people from the Jewish population)." [Act of Soviet State extraordinary commission, RG-22.002M/7021-84/12]
Shumilino is a town located about 45 km northwest of Vitebsk. In 1939, 376 Jews lived in the town, making up 16% of the total population. After the German invasion of Poland, a significant population of Polish Jews came to the city. The city was under German occupation from 1941 to 1944.
A ghetto, enclosed with barbed wire, was established on Pionerskaya Street in August 1941. The ghetto was liquidated on November 19, 1941, when the Germans and local police shot the Jews on the site of a former peat-mining facility, called "Dobeyevskiy Mokh". Around 300 Jews may have been killed that day. Witnesses described how the Jewish houses were plundered following the shootings.
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