[Page 131]

The Shoah Atlas of the Holocaust rev. ed. by Sir Martin Gilbert, N.Y. W. Morrow. 1993 Map 74 - Map representing the number of Jews murdered from July 17, 1941 to August 31, 1941 [arrows at bottom of map point to Kiliya, with 2,000 recorded deaths]

[Page 132]

Exhibit 1

When the Rozenblat family was deported, they left with their neighbour, Mrs. Cravcenko, a Makhzor (Prayer Book for the High Holidays) and other items to keep.

Mrs. Cravcenko, the Russian neighbour of the Rozenblat family, wrote in the Makhzor, next to the Neilah Prayer (the Closing Prayer of Yom Kippur), what she witnessed on September 25 and September 30, 1941: “On September 25, 1941, they took the Jewish men away, and on September 30, they took the women and the children, the poor, unfortunate, and suffering people.”

Page from the Makhzor with the witness handwriting in Russian.

[Page 133]

Exhibit 2

The Romanian gendarmerie order for execution of the Jews of Kiliya in the Tatarbunary camp (from the volume The Jews of Bessarabia, 1971).

(The Hebrew text is a translation from the Romanian.)

Secret

Received No. 595

August 25, 1941, No. 791

Year 1941, Month August, Day 19

Inspectorate of the gendarmerie of Kishinev

To: The Office of the Great Magistrate – Military Mail Office No. 85

Further to our report No. 608 of August 12, 1941:

I have the honour to report that 118 Jews from Chilia Noua (New Kiliya) were shot in the Tataraṣi (Tatarashi) camp. The rest escaped and ran away, and we are following them. I ordered the troops to report on their findings, and I will report on that immediately.

The Inspector of the Kishinev gendarmerie

Colonel T. Miculescu (his signature)

The Chief of Police

Major Gr. Zlằvec (his name is crossed out and there is an illegible signature)

[Page 134]

Hebrew text: The hanging of the Jews of Odessa by the Romanians. On October 16, 1941, the Romanians occupied Odessa and made it the capital of Transnistria. A lot of Jews from Kiliya were executed by the Romanians in Odessa (including Benia Oks – see poem on page 41) and others. Russian text: Russian text: Occupation of Odessa, October 16, 1941. Romanian Fascists took over the city. Many of the Jews of Kiliya (Benia Oks and others) were killed in Odessa.

Hebrew/Russian text: 10 out of 11 Jewish people from the Jewish Community Council were shot in Beltsi (Bằlṭi).

[Page 135]

The Trial and the Punishment

This is the report presented by the Russian journalist P. Fomin in the local Communist paper from the Nicolaev region regarding the trial of the Ukrainian murderers in the Bogdanovka area. The majority of these murderers were the German settlers (Volksdeutsche) who helped the Ukrainians.

(The Hebrew translation is a shorter version of the original article).

The Special Official Tribunal was presented with files collected during 23 years. These files contained the details about the gruesome and horrible crimes committed by the German and the Romanian Fascist occupiers in the Bogdanovka and Domanevka areas. These reports confirmed the cruelty of criminals and robbers who spilled the blood of innocent Soviet citizens in areas they occupied during the war. They murdered men, women, and children and subjected them to horrible inhuman tortures.

Before the testimonies of the eye witnesses, only the names of the commanders who gave the orders were known to us; now we know also the names of these who committed the actual killings with their own hands.

The prisoners were taken out under heavy guard from an unfinished building. They were ordered to kneel at the edge of a pit and were shot. The dead and the wounded were thrown into the pit (the death pit), where a huge bonfire was burning. According to the witnesses, the children were just thrown alive into the fire.

Here are the names of the disgusting, repulsive wretched criminals: Yosef Gass, Vladimir Gifner, Aleksandr Ionus, Ivan Kilbeyn, Florian Kob, Alexandr Orghianov, Ivan Pastushenko, Ivan Feldelheimer, Petr Shtolts, Kara Evangel, and Florian Evangel. They all collaborated with the Nazi enemies and committed the massacres in 1941.

During this trial, which lasted two weeks, the picture of these crimes came to light. More than fifty witnesses testified and brought new evidence of these crimes every day. Nothing deterred these blood-thirsty criminals, not even the crying mothers begging for their children lives.

Bogdanovka should be remember forever and be a reminder to all humanity. The criminals were sentenced to death–a well deserved punishment–and the sentence was received with applause from the court audience. We know that on the accused bench were not all the murderers from the villages of Bogdanovka, the ones who belonged to the “Zelbeshtudt” organization.

We know that in Germany there are many Nazis who are in hiding: SS Commander Rudolf Gartung and his assistants, Gans Shtetder, Walter Peterson, and Gans Kaykh.

This trial and the punishment should be a reminder that we did not forget the atrocities of these criminals, and we hope that justice will be done…

Note: In the former Soviet Union, they usually failed to say that the victims of the Nazis (like in Bogdanovka, etc) were Jewish!

[Page 136]

The yellowing pages of the act of the Extraordinary State Commission. For 23 years they have held the record of the heinous crimes committed by the German Fascist and Romanian occupiers in the Domanovka area. These papers present evidence of the acts of atrocities by executioners and robbers who spilled the blood of thousands of innocent Soviets in temporarily occupied Soviet land.

“The German and Romanian occupiers were extreme in the acts of cruelty they committed toward the Soviet citizens in the Bogdanovka and Domanovka areas, and others. They murdered completely innocent men, women, and children, subjecting them to horrendous tortures and torments beforehand.

“The prisoners were led out under guard to a crumbling building, placed on their knees on the edge of a dropoff, and shot. From the edge of the dropoff, the dead, and frequently the merely wounded, fell to the bottom of a pit, where a giant bonfire had been made from thatch, brush, and firewood. The executioners threw little children into the flames of that fire alive,” the records in the act state.

When it was written, only the ringleaders were known, by whose orders peaceful citizens of our country were killed in temporarily occupied territory. Now we know the names of the criminals by whose hands Soviet citizens were savagely murdered. A copy of the above-mentioned act is attached to the judicial case. The 30 volumes of records of interviews of the defendants, face-to-face sessions, and witness testimonies tower on the desk before the judges of the circuit session of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian Republic.

The poet was right: “Like a bride, we love our Motherland, We protect her, as a gentle mother.” And there is no greater act than to stand up for the Motherland and, if need be, to give our life for her freedom and independence, for the happiness and well-being of the people.

But there is no more egregious crime on earth than the betrayal of the Motherland, your own people. You are no longer her son – meaning that a person without a Motherland is no person. Universal contempt of the people – that is the destiny of a traitor.

These wretched, despicable cowards – Yosef Gass, Vladimir Gipner, Aleksandr Ionus, Ivan Kilvein, Florian Koch, Aleksandr Orgiyanov, Ivan Pastushenko, Ivan Fendenheimer, Petr Shtoltz, Karl Ebenal, and Florian Ebenal – dismally waiting for the court's sentence, betrayed the Motherland. When the year 1941 arrived in tears and blood, they defected to the side of the enemy, turning into predatory beasts, and together with the German Fascist invaders, they committed unspeakable crimes against their own people.

The case lasted for two weeks. For two weeks the circuit session of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, under Chairman Leonid Mefodevich Chaikovsky in the presence of representatives of the state prosecution and defense, went step by step in revealing the horrific pictures of the gravest crimes committed by the traitors to the Motherland. Around fifty witnesses went before the court. And the testimonies of each one revealed more and more new atrocities by the despicable turncoats.

The witness testimonies of people who saw the horrible scenes of atrocity make the heart bleed. Neither the children's crying nor the mothers' pleading could touch the monsters who attacked their victims like insatiable jackals.

The criminals were not sincere when they were offered the final word. They did not use that opportunity for true penitence, but all of them were evasive and tried to minimize their guilt.

“These bloody crimes cry out for retribution. They give rise to a fierce hatred in the hearts of Soviet citizens. Not one crime will be forgotten, not one will be forgiven! Retribution is already coming… a reckoning approaches.

“We recall Bogdanova, and Domankova, and the torment, and the fires with the odor of burned flesh. The German and Romanian criminals will fully pay for their evil deeds. Nothing will save them – the German and Romanian killers – from a harsh culpability for the crimes committed against the Soviet people.” This was written in the Izvestiya newspaper 23 years ago, commenting on the act of the Extraordinary State Commission.

Nothing has been forgotten. We made the beasts remember Bogdanovka. The traitors did not escape vengeance. For all of the atrocities they committed alongside the German Fascist occupiers, for the torture and torment, for the mass extermination of Soviet people, Yosef Gass, Vladimir Gipner, Aleksandr Ionus, Ivan Kilvein, Florian Koch, Aleksandr Orgiyanov, Ivan Pastushenko, Ivan Fendenheimer, Petr Shtoltz, Karl Ebenal, and Florian Ebenal were sentenced to execution by a firing squad.

The sentence was harsh but fair. The ordinary citizens in attendance in the court responded to it with unanimous approval. The words “sentence you with the maximum punishment…” brought on thunderous applause.

We know that not all the criminals from the “Zelbst-shuts” unit of Bogdanovka were on the defendants' bench. We also know that SS Commander Rudolf Gartung of the Roshtadt headquarters and his assistants, Hans Shtetler, Walter Peterson, and Hans Kleich, who organized mass executions of Soviet citizens, are in hiding in West Germany.

May this punishment be one more stark reminder to the criminals that their atrocities have not been forgotten, that sooner or later vengeance will come, that retribution will be accomplished.

[Page 137]

Bogdanovka is an area in the Nikolaev Region in the Ukraine about 200 km north of Odessa and 40 km South of PervoMayisk and 300 km North West of Kiliya. It was the “killing pit” for the Bessarabian Jews. The Germans, Romanians, and Ukrainians massacred here more than 54,000 Jews, among them 1,300 Jews from Kiliya.

“The Monument” of about 20 cm height was photographed in 1967 by Ester Globerman, a survivor of Bogdanovka, and was printed in Sonia Palty's book, Jews Cross the Dniester.

The photos that we received from the Bogdanovka council show two monuments. Unfortunately, it was impossible to read what was written on the plaques. The Association of the Kiliya Jews in Israel asked the authorities of the Nikolaev area to send better pictures, in which it is possible to read the plaques.

[Page 138]

Hebrew text: The Monument In memory of the 60,000 Holocaust victims in Bogdanovka

After many requests, we finally received photos of the monument and were able to read the dedication plaque: “Here in the time of the Great Patriotic War, the Fascists killed thousands of Soviet citizens.” It was very heartbreaking to see a dedication that does not mention the Jewish genocide. See article on page 139.   Russian text: Recently, after many requests to the city council of Bogdanovka and then the regional council of Nikolaev, we received these photos of the memorial plaque in Russian: “Here, during the Great Patriotic War, the Fascists killed thousands of Soviet citizens.”

[Page 139]

Hebrew/Russian text:

“No monument stands over Babi Yar.”^[1]

Evgeny Yevtushenko's poem Babi Yar starts with these words, and they shook up the entire world, with the exception of the Soviet Union rulers. They tried to silence him and persecuted him, but the storm grew bigger and bigger, and most writers and even academicians in the Soviet Union demanded the authorities change their line of silence toward the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Russia. Twelve years after the publication of Babi Yar, a monument was erected. The issue was not only about erecting monuments or headstones on the killing fields where thousands were massacred; the problem was that the truth was not being told about the Jewish victims of genocide.

The fact is that the Romanian Fascists deported more than 60,000 Jews to Bogdanovka from Bessarabia, Bukovina, and the Odessa area. On the marches to Bogdanovka, thousands of old people, sick people, and children were murdered. In 1944, fewer than 200 were left. They were all Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union, and they were killed because they were Jews.

On the following pages, we publish pictures of monuments erected from 1950 until today in Communist countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and others. There are dozens of monuments in Treblinka, Maidanek, Auschwitz, Theresienstadt, etc. (see photographs), and no one is hiding the fact that the victims were Jewish. The plaques are written in Hebrew.^[2]

The local authorities of Nicolaev and Bogdanovka should have written the whole truth in Hebrew on the monument's marble plaque, that the victims were JEWS, citizens of the Soviet Union. If these local authorities will not respond to this justified request, we will appeal to the authorities in Kiev and in Moscow to recognize the truth.

In the poem, Yevtushenko expresses his solidarity with the Jewish people and empathy for their suffering during the Holocaust. He reminds us of the anti-Semitism of the French against Dreyfus, the Russian murderers shouting, “Beat on the Jews and save Russia.” He wrote about^[3] the concentration camps, the ghettos, the gas chambers, and he is asking that the Jewish people be treated with respect.

On the marble plaque of the Bogdanovka monument, it is written: “Here, during the Great Patriotic War, the Fascists killed thousands of Soviet citizens.”^[4] We demand the following changes: “Here, during the Great Patriotic War, the Fascists killed 60,000 innocent men, women, and children – Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union.” This monument would be valuable to all Jews of Bessarabia and the Odessa region who are interested in organizing special trips to Bogdanovka, Odessa, and Kiliya in memory of the victims.^[5]

L.K.

Translator's Footnotes:

1. The Hebrew text continues this quote: A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone. / I am frightened. Return
2. Hebrew text: and in Yiddish. Return
3. Hebrew text: He wrote about Anne Frank, Return
4. This first plaque quote is not in the Hebrew text. Return
5. Hebrew text: This would be a monument for the memory of all Jews of Bessarabia and the Odessa region, and we would be happy to organize special trips to Bogdanovka, Odessa, and Kiliya in order to commemorate and remember our victims. Return

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