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1 Killing site(s)
Andrey S., born in 1930, remembered: “The refugees of Jewish origin were gathered in the kolkhoz building under the pretext of being resettled. After they were loaded on carts and taken to the execution site. They were screaming and crying as they understood what would happen. One young Jewish man attempted to escape to a little forest but he was shot dead on the spot. Then, his body was buried with other victims by the requisitioned villagers. ” (Testimony n°720 interviewed in Dmitrievskoye on May 22nd, 2015)
“After the opening of two pits on the territory of kolkhoz “Komsomolets” the commission discovered 335 bodies (men, women, children and the elderly), among them 225 victims were brought by the Germans from other rural communes of the district. 107 residents of Dmitrievskoye commune were shot. These Soviet citizens were shot by the German-fascist groups on August 18th and December 20th, 1942. Under the order of the German Kommandantur, the Soviet citizens were brought to the kolkhoz “Komsomolets” with their belongings and shot to death at dawn. The second shooting took place on December 19th when it was cold. 150 people from all the hamlets and kolkhozes around Dmitrievskoye were brought to the village administration with their belongings. Then, they were taken to the cellar, where they were detained for 24 hours without food or water. The next morning, they were shot outside of the village. Eyewitness Vladimir K. reported that the victims were forced to strip naked, and the drunken perpetrators fired at them. Many of the victims were only wounded, but they were pushed alive into the pit. When the victims’ affaires were loaded on the trucks, two babies were found. One of the drunken executioners grabbed the babies by the feet, hit them against the ground and threw them into the pit.” [The State Extraordinary Commission act drawn up on June 25th, 1943; RG 22.002M: 7021-17-10]
Dmitrievskoye is located 100 km north of Stavropol. It was founded in 1848 as the village of Novodmitrievskoe in the Stavropol Gubernia. A male and a female one-class schools, opened in 1886 and 1897, operated in a local church. By the beginning of the 20th century there were 34 commercial and 16 industrial enterprises, a post office, and two pharmacies. According to the census in 1926 10,891 people lived in Dmitrievskoye. According to the local villager, interviewed by Yahad’s team, six kolkhozes functioned in the village before war. In the summer 1942, just before the occupation a lot of refugees including those of Jewish ethnicity arrived to Dmitrievskoye. They lived with the local villagers and worked in kolkhozes.
Dmitrievskoye was occupied by the German forces on August 2nd, 1942. Soon after occupation the Germans installed their kommandantur in the kolkhoz building. Newly-elected starosta, translator and the police also stayed in the same building. According to the historical resources two executions, in the course of which 335 people were killed, took place in Dmitrievskoye. One execution was conducted on August 18th, two weeks after the occupation, and another one it the mid-December 1942. The local villager, interviewed by Yahad’s team, happened to witness one of them. According to his testimony, the Jewish refugees were rounded up with their belongings in one of the local kolkhozes under the pretext of being resettled. After, they were taken to the village outskirts in carts, shot there in groups and buried in a lime pit by the requisitioned villagers.
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