Eyewitness accounts of mass shootings:

This first testimony is by Rivka Yosselevscka in a war crimes tribunal court. For ease of presenting her testimony, I am eliminating questions and
comments of the court itself. She lived in Zagrodski and the Einsatzgruppen commandos arrived in the summer of 1942. All Jews were rounded up, a
roster was drawn up and the families were loaded onto trucks. Since there were around 500 families, many could not get on so they were told to run
behind the trucks....

...I had my daughter in my arms and ran after the truck. There were mothers who had 2 or 3 children and held them in their
arms - running after the truck. We ran all the way. There were those who fell - we were not allowed to help them rise. They were
shot right there, wherever they fell. When we reached the destination, the people from the truck were already down and
undressed - all lined up. All of my family was there. This was some 3 km from our village. There was a kind of hillock. At the
foot of this little hill, there was a dugout. We were ordered to stand at the top of the hillock and the 4 devils shot us - each one
separately. They were SS men - the 4 of them....

When I came to the place, we saw people naked lined up. But we were still hoping that this was only torture. Maybe there is
hope - hope of living. One could not leave the line, but I wished to see. Is there anyone down below? I turned my head and saw
that some 3 or 4 rows were already killed - on the ground. There were some 12 people amongst the dead. I also want to mention
that my child said while we were lined up in the ghetto, she said, "Mother, why did you make me wear the Shabbat dress? We
are being taken to be shot!". And when we stood near the dugout, near the grave, she said, "Mother, why are we waiting? Let's run!" Some of the young people tried to run, but they were caught immediately, and they were shot right there. It was difficult

to hold on to the children. We took all children not ours, and we carried - we were anxious to get it all over - the suffering of
the children was difficult. We all trudged along to come nearer to the place and to come nearer to the end of the torture of the
children. The children were taking leave of their parents, and parents of their elder people. We were driven...we were already
undressed, the clothes were removed; and taken away. Our father did not want to undress. He remained in his underwear. We
were driven up to the grave...when it came our turn, our father was beaten. We prayed, we begged with my father to undress,
but he would not undress, he wanted to keep his underclothes. He did not want to stand naked. Then they tore the clothing off
the old man and he was shot. I saw it with my own eyes. Then they took my mother and shot her, too...and then there was my
grandmother, my father's mother, standing there, she was eighty years old and she had two children in her arms; and then there
was my father's sister. She also had children in her arms and she was shot on the spot with the babies in her arms..
Finally my turn came. There was my younger sister - and she wanted to leave. She prayed with the Germans, she asked to run -
naked, she went up to the Germans with one of her friends, they were embracing each other. He looked into her eyes and shot
the 2 of them. They fell together in their embrace, the two young girls - my sister and her young friend. Then my 2nd sister was
shot and then my turn did come. We turned towards the grave and then he turned around and asked, "Whom shall I shoot
1st?" We were already facing the grave. The Germans asked, "Who do you want me to shot 1st?" I did not answer. I felt him
take the child from my arms. The child cried out and was shot immediately. And then he aimed at me. First, he held onto my
hair and turned my head around. I stayed standing. I heard a shot, but I continued to stand and then he turned my head again
and he aimed the revolver at me and ordered me to watch and then turned my head around and shot at me. Then I fell to the
ground into the pit amongst the bodies- but I felt nothing. The moment I did feel, I felt a sort of heaviness...and then I thought
"maybe I'm not alive anymore - but I feel something after I've died". I thought I was dead, that this was the feeling that comes
after death. Then I felt that I was choking; people falling over me. I tried to move, and felt that I was alive and that I could
rise. I was strangling. I heard the shots and I was praying for another bullet to put an end to my suffering, but I continued to
move about. I felt that I was choking, strangling, but I tried to save myself - to find some air to breathe, and then I felt that I
was climbing towards the top of the grave above the bodies. I rose and I felt bodies pulling at me with their hands, biting at my
legs, pulling me down, down. And yet, with my last strength, I came up on top of the grave, and when I did, I did not know the
place, so many dead bodies were lying all over, dead people; I wanted to see the end of this stretch of dead bodies, but I could
not. It was impossible. They were lying, all dying; suffering; not all of them dead, but in their last sufferings; naked; shot, but
not dead. Children crying "Mother" & "Father"; I could not stand on my feet....the Germans were gone. There was nobody
there. No one standing up. I was naked, covered with blood, dirty from the other bodies - with the excrement from other bodies
which was poured on me....I was wounded in the head...I have a scar to this day from the shot by the Germans...and yet
somehow, I did come out of the grave. This was something I thought I would never live to recount.
I was searching among the dead for my little girl and I cried for her - Merkele was her name - "Merkele!" There were children
crying "Mother!", "Father!" - but they were smeared with blood and one could not recognize the children. I cried for my
daughter. From afar, I saw 2 women standing - I went up to them. They did not know me. I didn't know them, and then I said
who I was, then they said, "So you survived!"...and there was another woman crying, "Pull me out from amongst the corpses! I
am alive! Help!" We were thinking how we could escape from the place. The cries of the woman, "Help! Pull me out of the
corpses!" We pulled her out. her name was Mikla Rosenberg. We removed the corpses and the dying people who held onto her
and continued to bite. She asked us to take her out, to free her, but we didn't have the strength - and thus we were there all
night, fighting for our lives, listening to the cries and screams - then all of a sudden, we saw Germans, mounted Germans - we
did not notice them coming in because of the screams and the shouting from the bodies around us. The Germans ordered that
all the corpses be heaped together into one big heap and with shovels they were heaped together, all of the corpses, amongst
them many still alive.- children running about the place. I saw them. I saw the children. They were running after me, hanging
onto me. Then I sat down in the field and remained sitting with the children around me - the children who got up from the
heap of corpses. Then Germans came and were going around the place.
We were ordered to collect all the children, but they did not approach me and I sat there watching how they collected the
children. They gave a few shots and the children were dead - they did not need many shots - the children were almost dead, and
this Rosenberg woman pleaded with the Germans to be spared, but they shot her. They all left - the Germans and the non-Jews
from around the place. They removed the machine guns and they took the trucks. I saw that they all left, and the four of us -
we went onto the grave - praying to fall into the grave -even alive, envying those who were dead already and thinking "What to
do now?". I was praying for death to come, I was praying for the grave to open up and to swallow me alive. Blood was spurting
from the grave in many places - like a well of water. When I pass a spring now - I remember the blood which spurted from the
ground - from the grave. I was digging with my fingernails, trying to join the dead in that grave. I dug with my fingernails, but
the grave would not open - I did not have enough strength. I cried out to my mother, to my father "Why did they not kill me?
What was my sin? I have no one to go to!". I saw them all being killed. Why was I spared? Why was I not killed?...I remained
there, stretched out on the grave, 3 days and 3 nights...
 

The following account of Einstazgruppen aktions during the liquidation of the Dubno ghetto (Ukraine) was given by Hermann Graebe, a German civilian engineer,
who witnessed the event:

On Oct. 5, 1942, when I visited a building office at Dubno, my foreman, H. Moennikes, told me that in the vicinity of the site, Jews
from Dubno had been shot in 3 large pits, each about 30 meters long and 3 meters deep. About 1500 persons had been killed daily.
All of the 5000 Jews who had been living in Dubno before the pogrom were to be liquidated. As the shootings had taken place in
his presence, he was still much upset...
Moenikkes and I went directly to the pits. Nobody bothered us. Now I heard rifle shots in quick succession, from behind one of the
earth mounds. The people who had got off of the trucks - men, women and children of all ages - had to undress upon the order of
an SS man who carried a riding whip. They had to put down their clothes in fixed places, sorted according to shoes, top-clothing
and underclothes, I saw a heap of shoes - about 800 to 1000 pairs, great piles of underlinen and clothing. Without screaming or
weeping, these people undressed, stood around in family groups, kissed each other, said farewells and waited for a sign from
another SS man, who stood near the pit, also with a whip in his hand.
During the 15 minutes that I stood near the pit, I heard no complaint or plea for mercy. I watched a family of about 8 persons, a
man and woman, both about 50, with their children of about 1, 8 & 10 and 2 grown-up daughters of about 20 & 24. An old
woman with snow-white hair was holding the 1 yr old child in her arms and singing to it and tickling it. The child was cooing with
delight. The couple was looking on with tears in their eyes. The father was holding the hand of a boy about 10 yrs old and speaking
to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears. The father pointed towards the sky, stroked his head and seemed to explain something
to him. At that moment, the SS man at the pits shouted something to his comrade. The latter counted off about 20 persons and
instructed them to go behind the earth mound. Among them was the family which I mentioned.
I well-remember a girl, slim and with black hair who, as she passed close to me, pointed to herself and said "Twenty-three!". I
walked around the mound and found myself confronted by a tremendous grave. People were closely wedged together and lying on
top of each other so that only their heads were visible. Nearly all had blood running over their shoulders from their heads. Some of
the people shot were still moving. Some were lifting their arms and turning their heads to show that they were still alive. The pit
was already 2/3 full. I estimated that it already contained about 1000 people. I looked for the man who did the shooting. He was an
SS man who sat at the edge of the narrow end of the pit, his feet dangling into the pit. he had a tommy-gun on his knees and he
was smoking a cigarette. The people, completely naked, went down some steps which were cut in the clay wall of the pit and
clambered over the heads of the people lying there, to the place where the SS man directed. They laid down in front to the dead or
injured people, some caressed those who were still alive and spoke to them in a low voice. Then I heard a series of shots.
I looked into the pit and saw that the bodies were twitching or the heads, lying already motionless on top of the bodies that lay
before them. Blood was running from their necks. I was surprised that I was not ordered away, but I saw that there were 2 or 3
postmen in uniform nearby. The next batch was approaching already. They went down in the pit, lined themselves up against the
previous victims and were shot.
When I walked back around the mound, I noticed another truckload of people which had just arrived. This time it included sick
and infirm people. An old, very thin woman with terribly thin legs was undressed by others who were already naked while 2 people
held her up. The woman appeared to be paralyzed, the naked people carried the woman around the mound. I left with Moennikes
and drove in my car to Dubno.
On the morning of the next day, when I again visited the site, I saw about 30 naked people lying near the pit - about 30 to 50m
away from it. Some of them were still alive; they looked straight in front of them with a fixed stare and seemed to notice neither
the chilliness of the morning nor the workers of my firm who stood around. A girl of about 20 spoke to me and asked me to give
her clothes and help her escape. At that moment we heard a fast car approach and I noticed that it was an SS detail. I moved away  to my site. 10 minutes later we heard shots from the pit. The Jews still alive had been ordered to throw the corpses into the pit - then they themselves had to lie in this to be shot in the neck.