The Holocaust Record
We did a search for Volchin on the Routes to Roots Foundation website. The search only located this one document. This told us to look in

Fond 514 -- Opis 1 -- Delo 60 -- Page 24

in the Brest Archive, where we would find a Holocaust-related document from 1942.

The Indictment
When we visited the Brest Archive on 31 August 2006, at the specificed location, we found two pages in Russian:

Though titled "The Act", as the text goes on to explain, this document is a kind of formal indictment.

The English translation:

29th September 1944
Volchin Village

We, undersigned, the Commission for Investigation of Crimes Committed by the German Fascist Army on the Territory of the Town Council of Volchin, consisting of:

Vasili Sergeevich Alitovky, Chairman

and other members including:

Boris Afanasievich Kulibo, Doctor
Pharma Philipovich Sakharchouk, Deputy Chairman of Town Council of Volchin
Anatily Dimitrievicha Yurchik, Head of School
Nikolai Ivanovich Siniavsky, Secretary of Visoko-Litovsk RKLKSMB
Nikolai Yakovlevich Sakharchouk, Volchin Parish Priest
Ivan Trifanovich Groushevki, A Representative of the Regional Commission

Have made the following Formal Indictment (Act) on the findings below:

On the 22nd September 1942 a group of nine German Army members with twenty Police members carried out a mass execution of the 497 (four hundred and ninety seven) Jewish people of Chernavchitsa and Volchin villages.

After opening up the mass grave, a general examination, postmortem examination of dead bodies, taking photographs, taking witness statements and obtaining the documentation, the Commission has come to the following conclusion that the following facts had taken place:

On the above mentioned day every Jewish person of the Ghetto of Volchin was told to take their most valuable belongings and be prepared to be taken to the town of Visoko-Litovsk. However, after loading up all the valuables on carts and those who were not able to walk due to extreme starvation, German Nazis took the rest of the people away from Volchin village towards the town of Visoko-Litovsk to a gravel pit and executed by shooting. Before shooting all those people were ordered to strip their entire clothes despite of the fact there were women, men, elderly, babies and teenagers.

The German Nazis executed people in small groups of 3 to 5 people, those who were resisting were severely beaten up and half-alive thrown to the pit. Small children were lifted up and hanging on one arm or leg (upside-down) were shot point-blank. Basically, the German Nazis carried out the execution by shooting people in small groups of 3 to 5 people and by using a gun butt, murdering people one by one in front of the others awaiting their turn to die, executing all, having taken the valuables, and buried the dead bodies in a single grave, a former gravel pit.

In addition to the mentioned above, in 1942 the German Fascists executed by shooting the citizens of village Maculisca, Stephan, Blokhin, Gerasim Nikituk, and the Zalesse village population of 15 (fifteen) people, Ushiki village population of 6 people and others, In total in the Volchin area German Nazis have executed 551 Civil Population, 3 were taken as War prisoners, 78 were sent to work in Germany. In respect of which the present Act has been made.

Signatures

Chairman of Commission

Members of Commission

The following are enclosed to constitute as a vital part of the present Act:

--Witness statements
--Photos
--Lists of people sent to work in Germany
--Other Documents

Note that four attachments are mentioned,

--Witness statements
--Photos
--Lists of people sent to work in Germany
--Other Documents

Important information! Unfortunately, we were unable to find them in the archive.

This information is discussed on pages 146 and 147 of Andrea Simon's book, Bashert.

- - Terry and Felicity Zelcer

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Page Last Updated: 17-Nov-2016