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There was a Jew in Korets by the name of Dovid Perel. Everyone knew him and his wife Yente. In these few tragic lines, I will describe their horrific end.

After the first murder spree [slaughter], Dovid approached me and asked if I knew a Christian from Morozovka by the name of Safke. Even though his aunt from Morozovka told him that the Christian was an honest man, he still wanted to hear my thoughts. I said that I knew Safke very well, but do as you understand because in these things it is difficult to give a suggestion.

I did not see Dovid after that. Before the second slaughter, I fled into the forest and I came back at the beginning of the year 1944. The authority was already in Soviet hands and I began working for the NKVD [Soviet secret police, forerunner of KGB]. On the second week of my coming to Korets, I met with Safke. He was so happy that I was alive, he even kissed me. My first question for him was if he had seen Dovid, and if he knew what had happened to him. His response was that he did not know where the last steps of his friend Dovid had taken place.

The pretended innocence awakened a suspicion in my heart, because during the war years the bandits ruled in Morozavka, and Safke was their “chief.” There is no doubt that his hands spilled Jewish blood.

The Soviets did not know that he was a gangster and they mobilized him to the front along with other Ukrainians who lived in Korets.

Once, at two o'clock in the middle of the night, a sharp banging on the door awoke me. When I opened the door, I saw the chief of the NKVD. He asked me if I knew Safke. There were rumors that he was a bandit and they had been given an order to search …

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for weapons in his house. At 4 am., 25 NKVD men arrived, and I among them, to the town of Morozovka, and we surrounded Safke's house. We went into the house and found his wife and daughter-in-law. His son was serving in the Red Army.

We were armed with long lances, and we dug up the earth. But, unfortunately, by 7 in the morning, we did not find anything. We were already thinking of going back empty-handed. When I went out of the stall, by chance stuck I the lance into the ground, and I felt that it somehow had touched a hard board. It seemed to be somewhat thick, and I asked Safke's wife if she had a hiding place in the yard. She said that she had a cellar where she hid bread from the eyes of the Germans. I gave her a shovel and told her to uncover the hiding place. She was not so eager to do so, but when she saw who was forcing this she did as she was told.

When she removed the earth covering, we saw a board. I tore it open with the lance, and I saw a human body. When that was removed, we saw another two bodies. The bodies were already in a state of decay, and the skin had already separated from the bones. It was difficult to identify the bodies. In my mind, there was already a horrific thought stewing: Who are they? Maybe this was Dovid, his wife, and his daughter? The Christian woman had put forth an innocent face: She knows nothing; she did not kill these people and she did not bury them.

We took the bodies, moved them to the Korets hospital, and left them there until judgement would be made.

We sent away NKVD men to Novogrod-Volynsk to search for Safke. They returned and said there were rumors that he was going around in Bielokorovits by Zhitomir.

In about three weeks, two policemen from the NKVD came to Korets, and they brought Safke with them. I was the first one to go over to him and ask: “Do you know me?” He replied that he knew many Korets Jews but he had not heard anything about me. “And did you know Dovid?” I asked him.

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The murderer made as if unknowing. “And who buried Dovid in your yard?” I would not let go.

The NKVD people made him “soften” with some special “tools” in their hands, and then Safke opened his mouth and told the whole truth: He took Dovid home, his wife and young daughter, and hid them in his stall. Soon he began to shiver thinking that the Germans would kill him if they found Jews with him, so he began to ask Dovid to leave his house. But Dovid ignored him and remained put. Then Safke began to starve them, taking away their bread and water. But a miracle happened. They don't know, a Jew or a Christian, but an unknown person brought them food and water every night.

When Safke saw that there was no end in sight for all this, he decided to choke them all. With his bearlike paws [hands] he first choked Dovid, then Yente, and finally their little girl. He hid the three bodies in a ditch.

Safke was put before the courts but the punishment was a very light one: For his “good deeds” as a bandit and for spilling innocent blood he was given eight years of “explusion” from Korets, meaning that any time during those eight years, he was not allowed to show his face in the city.

The doctor in the hospital did not stop calling me telling me to remove the bodies. I took Ezriel Linik and Yitzchok Feiner along with me. We went to the hospital and we took the frozen bones of the three martyrs into our hands. It was very cold outside. The frost had solidified the ground and it was very difficult to dig a grave.

It was evident that in the time of the war many Ukrainians were buried in the Jewish cemetery, and later they were moved to the non-Jewish cemetery.

In one of the open graves, we hid Dovid's bones, Yente's, and their child's. I said “eil malei rachamim” [prayer for the dead], and I returned home with a broken heart.

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