1 Execution site(s)
Eva B.: “The Jews were shot in autumn 1941. I saw a column of Jews (around 100 people) surrounded by Germans and policemen. The Germans were at the end of the column. They asked me to go to the edge of the road and to let the column go by. This took place near Voronino. The Jews seemed to be tired.” (Witness N°662, interviewed in Voronino, on June 25, 2013).
"In September 1941, Oberleutnant Mertus decided to gather 4679 Jews in a castle. After seven days without food or water, they were taken by truck to the edge of the Dniepr and were shot in an anti-tank trench. Children under 10-12 years old were not shot, the Germans threw them alive into the trench and buried them." [Act drawn by the Soviet Extraordinary Commission, in December 1944, RG22.022M/7021-88/35].
Voronino is located 58 km from Mogilev. According to Eva B. (Witness n°662 - interviewed in Voronino, on June 25, 2013), there were no Jews in the village before the war, but there was a large Jewsish community in the neigboring village of Bykhov.
In November 1941, an Aktion was carried out in Voronino on the Jews of Bykhov. The remaining Jews from Bykhov were rounded up in a castle for a week without food or water. The survivors were then sent to Voronino, 6 km from Bykhov, and shot in an anti-tank ditch. According to Soviet sources, 4,679 Jews perished in the village. In December 1943, the Germans came back to Voronino in order to exhume the bodies and burn them, in the framework of Operation 1005.
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