1 Killing site(s)
Mykola H., born in 1931: "About 520 people were shot, and the pit was completely filled to the top. After the shooting, they poured gasoline into the pit and set it on fire. That was even worse than watching the shooting itself. Many inside were only wounded and still alive. They began screaming, screeching, and crying out in the fire. It was horrific. I can’t say for certain if anyone managed to escape during the burning, but people said one person got out during the night. Apparently, he had been among the first to fall in and managed to crawl out through the opening used for burning lime." (Testimony N°YIU1276U, interviewed in Chyzhove, on August 3, 2011)
"On February 2, 1942, Romanian gendarmes, whose family names could not be established, brought 880 Soviet civilians of Jewish nationality to the village of Bernadovka, in the Berezovka district of the Odessa region. 480 people were placed in the barn of the ‘Harvest Day’ kolkhoz [collective farm], and 400 were sent to the village of Mykhailo-Oleksandrovka, in the same district. The 480 people who remained in Bernadovka were shot by the Germans in lime pits located 300 meters from the village of Bernadovka. The shootings were carried out with firearms, such as rifles and submachine guns, after which, on February 19, 1942, the bodies were doused with kerosene and burned. The shooting was carried out under the direction of an unidentified German officer, assisted by Schmidt, a policeman from the German colony who was stationed at the Jovtnivka sovkhoz [state farm]. There were a large number of children among the victims, as well as women and the elderly. There were 265 children." [Act No. 44 drawn up by the Extraordinary State Soviet Commission (ChGK), on September 18, 1944, in the village of Bernadovka [today Chyzhove]; Copy USHMM RG.22-002M, Reel 6 (29), p.40]
Chyzhove located in the Berezivka district of Odesa Oblast, lies approximately 104 km (64.6 mi) north of Odesa. Following the revolution, the region became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. During the Soviet period, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s, the area underwent significant agricultural development, leading to the re-organization of local settlements and the creation of collective farms (kolkhozes) and state farms (sovkhozes). The Berezivka district was consequently characterized by a significant presence of Jewish agricultural colonies, as well as numerous ethnic German settlers, known as Volksdeutsche.
According to available sources and local witness testimonies, however, there were no Jewish residents living in Chyzhove on the eve of the Second World War.
Chyzhove, like the rest of the Berezivka district, was occupied by German troops in early August 1941 and, at the end of the same month, was transferred to the Romanian civilian administration as part of the Transnistria Governorate.
On February 2 1942, 880 Jews from Odesa were brought to Chyzhove. While 400 of them were taken further to the nearby village of Mykhailo-Oleksandrivka, most of the remaining Jews were confined to an empty barn belonging to the "Harvest Day" kolkhoz (collective farm) on the outskirts of the village. They were held there under the supervision of several guards, but local inhabitants were still able to approach the barn to give food to the Jewish detainees, often exchanging it for clothing or valuables. According to witnesses interviewed by Yahad - In Unum, a number of Jews were also sheltered by locals in their homes during this period.
After approximately two weeks of confinement, a German unit that included ethnic German colonists arrived in Chyzhove. Assisted by Ukrainian policemen, they searched all the houses for any Jews who were being sheltered or hidden there. That same day, all the Jews were gathered in the barn.
The next day, on February 18 1942, they were shot during an Aktion carried out under the supervision of a German officer. The victims were forced to undress in the barn, from where they were marched in groups under guard to the nearby lime pit (referred to by some local witnesses as a silo pit). They were aligned on the edge facing the pit and shot by the Germans.
According to archival sources, between 480 and 483 victims, including 265 children, were killed during the Aktion. During the night of February 19, 1942, the victims’ bodies were doused with flammable liquid and burned. Sometime later, the pit was covered over with a bulldozer.
Today, the killing site in Chyzhove remains uncommemorated.
For more information about the killing of Jews in Mykhailo-Oleksandrivka, please follow the corresponding profile.
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