From the archive of Viktoria Lebedeva

On October 25, 1941, the Germans who occupied the city, gathered all students of orphanage #1 (located on Sverdlov Street #133 back then), chose three boys, and with shouts "Jude!", shot them in the back of the head in front of other children.

A German shot and killed a 13-14-year-old boy right before my eyes. The reason for the murder was that the boy was a Jew.

A father of the big Shekhtman family lay paralyzed for ten years. By the beginning of the occupation of the city of Kharkov, one of his sons was in the army, and three daughters and a son (the second one) decided to evacuate. They took the old man and all together went to the train station. But at this time the bombing began. The family still managed to get into the train. However, the old man said: "I'm not going anywhere, I will die in my bed!" So it exactly the way it happened - the father of the family was shot by the occupiers in his apartment and in his bed.

Bella Yukhvidova with her daughter and her Russian husband lived before the occupation on Chebotarskaya Street 25. It was a family of musicians. In the first months after the Nazis arrival, her brothers were shot, and Bella went to the barracks.

Once day she caught the moment and went to the driver who came to pick up people and asked: "Are you a Russian man ... Tell me, where will the Jews be taken? Until the first ravine! "- was the answer.

That night Bella ran away from the barracks, went through the villages. In one of them, in the kitchen, she met a German who began to feed her. Somehow she met swoppers - friends from Kharkov. "You look so good!"- said one of them, -"and your daughter and mother-in-law are starving, begging..."

Bella collected some food and went to Kharkov, to the family. Once, she walked along the street with her daughter, and the girl saw cupcakes in the shop window. "Mom, I want a cupcake!"- asked the child. And Bella bought her this delicacy. But then the policeman approached them. Bella presented him with her "Russian" passport, but in return received a blow to her face ... She was taken to the police, interrogated. The mother-in-law, who at that moment was with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, heard Bella being beaten by policemen. The next morning the mother-in-law went to find out how she was doing. It turned out that Bella died at night in the police station.

During the occupation one man was hiding his Jewish wife in the couch and did not allow anyone to sit on it. They lived in the first floor of the house along Moskovsky Ave., not far from the House of Culture of the Kharkov Electromechanical Plant. The couple endured until the city was liberated, although the woman's nervous system was exhausted to the limit. This was further aggravated by the fact that children from neighboring houses playing on the street often ran up to the window of these women and shouted: "Zhidovka, Zhidovka!" And one day the poor woman went out into the street and rushed under the wheels of the tram.

In the barracks, people stood - neither to sit down nor to lie ... We lived like this for several nights. I remember how one day Gurevich was chosen as the headman of the Jewish community.

The Germans and policemen with bandages on their sleeves walked around the barracks and collected toll. Once it was over, the policemen approached the women and tore off earrings from their ears.

I also remember this: the policemen walked around the barracks and took beautiful girls. The next morning their bodies were thrown into dug pits ...

My father Oiser Hershkovich Torchinsky was killed in the city - he was hanged at the tram stop "Valkovskaya."

I remember near the railway school # 1 (later # 18), it was on the corner of Ilinskaya Str. and Tokovay Str., on blankets and pillows sat people who were thrown out by the occupants from their apartments. I used to cook a quarter of coffee and give it to an old Jewish woman. She gave me the keys to her apartment ... It was on Tokovay Str., 3. The Germans drove out several families in the frost, and it was forbidden to approach them. They sat for so long.

Commited suicide by poisoning in barracks; according to other sources, she lost her mind.

Took poison in the barracks of machine-tool plant.

Volovik Boris Meerovich, born in 1872, Pushkinskaya Str. Obstetrician-gynecologist, professor. Committed suicide in barracks

Volovniki: Rakhil Manusovna and Yakov Manusovich (bookkeeper of "Donugol"), Galinskaya Str., 3, Apt. 7. Commited suicide by poisoning by arsenic in barracks.

Golubchina Varvara Savvichna, born in 1860. Lost her mind after her daughter was arrested on December 9, 1941. Killed in the synagogue.

In the barracks the father stood up for the mentally ill daughter. Both were shot on the spot.

Lavrynenko Vasily Dmitrievich, Darvina Str., 1, Apt. 19. Ukrainian. He committed suicide after his Jewish wife and son went to the ghetto.

Mamutova, Mironositskaya Str., 6. The wife of Professor of Medicine A. M. Mamutov. Lost her mind from the stress in the barracks.

Reznikova Sofia Moiseevna, Yuryevskaya Str., 4. She died on the way to barracks. Her husband, Reznikov B.G., died that same day on December 15, 1941, while he was seriously ill.

Sklovskaya, an old woman. She lived on Tolkovay street. After being kicked out from her apartment, she froze in the phone booth.

Shapiro, Kuznechnaya Str., 20, ground floor. Ran away from the barracks. Died while trying to open the door of her apartment.

Efros Alexander Mikhailovich, born in 1907, Chernoglazovskaya street. Did not evacuate because of a sick mother. Professor, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences. Was subjected to cruel treatments of Nazis who were coming to his apartment daily, beat him up and humiliated. Later was taken to the barracks together with his mother Efros Olga Mironovna. On the way was stripped naked and brutally beaten again. From an unheard-of torment the scientist lost his mind and was shot only then, according to A. Yu. Lebfreid, captured hostage and hang.

About the exodus to the barracks life conditions there.

People brought even furniture. After taking a place in the barracks, created heating with help of metal barrels, stoves where they were not destroyed, and heated with whatever they could gather for this. Often paid for it with life. Patrols walked along the railway line, between the barracks. There was no water. Even if someone tried to collect snow, they shot for this, as well as for the fact that people came to the market, although many managed to do it.

Jewish burgomaster Gurevich was also in the barracks. Most people in barracks believed in Gurevich - that he would find a way out of the situation, would think of something.

The Jewish policemen were - making order. When people were taken away from the barracks, Gurevich was given poison for young children. But he poisoned himself, kids were burnt.

Zhidovetskiy, Mironositskaya Str., 99, Apt. 70. Engineer. He was married to a Russian (Ukrainian) woman. She went to the barracks with her husband and the baby who was born right before the war.

Professor Katz as in the barracks as well. He had serious patients, whom he operated until the last.

People came to the barracks from all over the city merging on the Moskovskiy Avenue - wagons, sledges, baby carriages. Mostly elderly, women, children. The road was long, about 20 kilometers, the winter was very cruel, there was no appropriate clothing. Good women shawls, hats were torn off, coats were taken away.

Two guys were coming to the barracs - Vanya and Vasya. Sometimes they brought something to eat - people were already bloated from hunger. When we escaped from the ghetto, we met them on the way. They gave us something to eat ... Mom wanted to give them a ring, but they did not take it. At that time our barrack was already burning, children, old people were shouting. These two boys were in the fumes, in the soot - they tried to save people. One of them had tears running down his cheeks.

Dad had a bosom friend. Before the war, he married. Mikhail Martynenko ... He, like many others, did not let us in when we left the barracks. His young wife was hosting the Germans ... He gave money to my father, but was scared to let inside.

We went to the Artema Str., 34, to Elena Feodorovna, the mother of my (future!) husband.

A population census was conducted in Kharkov in November 1941. Identified 600,000 people. Measures are now being taken to bring the population in Kharkov to 250,000, leaving the original urban residents there.

By plundering and mocking the population, the Germans do not differentiate between workers, clerks and collective farmers. Differentiate by nationalities. Ukrainians have more privileges than Russians. For example, Ukrainians prisoners and deserters are less intruded than Russians. The Jews are completely terrorized.

Now the city is registering communists and Comsomol members, and the registration deadline is January 1, 1942.

What is required during registration? Turn in the Party or Comsomol ticket. The authorities warned that if unregistered communists and Comsomol members were found, they would be considered to be Zhid, and they would be responsible for not registering.

There is a small yar behind the Kharkov tractor plant, many hooligans were sent there, they were supposed to turn over the traveling sledges, detain them, and if met resistance to kill people. Gunmen with machine guns were also there. They shot directly at the Jews who were moving towards machine-tool plant. Their stuff was taken away immediately by cars.

Removed 25,000 people, shot about 14,000. The shot were buried by our prisoners. By the way, it should be said that many killed, shot and tortured prisoners are along the roads.

On machine-tool plant people are left to die a starving death. Already there are many cases of people dying from hunger. There is no for men there, some women bring food, but this presents them with great danger. It's hard to tell what's going on in these barracks.

In Kharkov, there were lots of snitches. The number of such people in villages is much smaller.

Kharkov Regional State Archive, Fund 2, Register 31, Case 117.

For reference: Anatoly Pavlovich Korotun, born in 1900, partorg of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolshevik). Arrested by the Gestapo on May 26, 1942. Killed.

According to F.I. Kersten and A.F. Grigorova, who often went to barracks, brought food to some of their acquaintances and Jewish neighbors. Later, these women told: " The Germans daily demanded that prisoners would turn in warm clothes, watches, valuables. If these requirements were not met because of the lack of stuff, the soldiers took out several dozen people from the barracks and shot them.

... Old people, cripples and children who could not reach the site, gathered in the building of the synagogue on Meshchanskaya Str. (now Grazhdanskaya Street), where most of the people froze, and some died of starvation. About 400 people died here.

Chernenko-Nazvich Anna Iosifovna, Serikov Daniil Alexandrovich and Kovrizhko Fyodor Lukyanovich confirmed that along with the executions, the Germans killed people, mostly children, with poisonous substances, burning their corpses in barracks.

The Suretyship

On Champaigner Grigory Mikhailovich, born in 1892, professor of the Kharkov University (English language and literature). Issued on December 4, 1941, that he is Russian by nationality and was a teacher of English language and literature at the Kharkov State University. Accountability before the law for the reliability of the information undertake: Professor Andrei Vladimirovich Zhelekhovsky and legal counsel of the hospital of the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood, Lyudmila Mikhailovna Kilovitskaya.

For reference: А.В. Zhelekhovsky is an outstanding scientist, dean of the physics and mathematics faculty of Kharkov University, professor. During the occupation, being a patriot of his university, he helped preserve university equipment and values, especially the library of the physics and mathematics faculty. Hid with my colleagues, trying to save the university from looting. Valuable devices were moved to the most remote corners of the buildings, where they were covered up with debris. All this was organized by A.V. Zhelekhovsky and N.P. Komar. Zhelekhovsky assisted many employees of the university, helped to get a job. Zhelekhovsky was a very prominent figure in the city, and the Germans invited him to become a commissioner for the university. This made it possible for some time to obtain some kind of a means of functioning of the university, to work semi-legally to preserve valuable university instruments, valuables and libraries, and most importantly - to save the lives of many employees.

This was the case for two or three months, and then new people were planted to the council and a rector and pro-rector from the fascist-loyal persons were appointed.

Under the new conditions, A.V. Zhelechowski was out of work and tried to save his family by moving to the town of Graivoron, where he had acquaintances from the relatives of his student and it was easier to feed.

In February 1943, Andrei Vladimirovich was unfairly accused of pro-German agitation and arrested. He died of typhus in the prison of Stary Oskol on May 9, 1943. In 1962 he was rehabilitated. He believed in Victory even in the hardest times of the war.

Lasenko Trofim, an Ukrainian, from Osnova. Went to barracks with his wife Elizaveta Kogan, a Jewish mother of two of their seven-year-old twin. Was there a few days until a man, a Pole, advised him to to run away - to save children. On December 18, 1941 the mother accompanied her children and the husband to the first patrol. In spite of all the trials, T. Lasenko saved the children, and never got married again.

Lysovs - doctors of homeopaths (they lived on Petrovsky Street), he is Russian, a wife - a Jew (Nikolai Vasilievich and Polina Abramovna). The husband went to the barracks with his wife.

Lev Pogrebitskiy worked at the Radio plant before the war. His wife, Maria Ivanovna, was Ukrainian (everyone called her Musya). Whole family, with two kids, they went to barracks. Subsequently, Maria Ivanovna led her son Monya and daughter Zhenya out of the ghetto . Now he lives in the city of Belgorod.

Fedorovna (first name and last name are unknown). She was a helper in the Goldman family. Her mistress, Sabina Goldman (Uritskiy Str., 33, apt. 26), was a bedridden patient. For this reason she was not taken, and together with the helper In the echelon, in which her children and grandchildren were leaving to the east, S.I. Goldman returned home. For several days they were in the apartment until the neighbors informed the Germans. Then Fedorovna took a wheelbarrow, put her mistress in her and drove to the Tractor Plant. No one ever saw them again...

A teacher from Kharkov’s school #82 Alexander Fedorovich Chumakov, had a wife Galina Samuilovna, who was a Jew. During the population census of Kharkov, she was added to the yellow lists. But her husband managed to buy her a "Russian" passport. Thanks to this, she survived the occupation. Together with Alexander Fedorovich she had two daughters.

Stepanida, Ukrainian. The wife of a Jew, Semyon Grigorievich Ass. Did not agree to let her husband go by himself and went to the barracks too. Both died.

Shcherbak family - sisters Alla Ivanovna and Susanna Ivanovna - during the entire occupation of the city of Kharkov rescued their Jewish friend Olga Brailovskaya, hiding her under the nose of the Germans, in their apartment.

Belova Alexandra Georgievna, born in 1902, journalist. At the plea of R.B. Berkovich took two of her children from the Tractor Plant on sledges, helped conceal them at her relatives’, bought a “Russian” passport for Berkovich. On March 27, 1942, she was arrested Gestapo on denunciation. Killed.

Beketova Alexandra Alexandrovna, born in Moscow in 1876. She came to Kharkov in 1941, lived on Sumskaya street, 52. She was an interpreter of fiction literature, a relative of the famous architect A. Beketov. During the occupation, she helped save the Jews from Kharkov. She was arrested by Gestapo on February 2, 1943. She was shot in the area of the Lesopark.

Uzunyan Yuriy Oganesovich (Ivanovich),born 1921, Komsomolskaya Rd., 47. Student of the chemical department of the Kharkov University. Took part in underground activities. Managed to get employed aa a passport officer of the Kholodnogorskiy burgomistrat, he helped many Kharkov residents to avoid being send to Germany, supplied documents to prisoners of war - prisoners of the concentration camp on the Kholodnaya Gora. Alerted Jews on preparations against them. Revealed by a traitor. Shot January 5, 1943 in the area of the Tractor Plant.

Going to the barracks - like a procession. Dragged stuff in the troughs, someone had a child sitting in it... We saw from windows ...Jews also lived at Sverdlova Str., 110, and all died ... I remember the Dobkin family very well .. With Manya, Lev Grigorievich Dobkin’s daughter and with son Lenya, wife Rosa, we were well acquainted. At work, at the Tinyakov factory, everybody called Lev Grigorievich Dobkin as "Comrade Dobkin". He helped me to get employment - I was a seamstress of the fifth category. He was a manager of a greatcoat department. And in October, Lev Grigorievich had a heart attack. But he was taken from the house as a hostage right from his bed. His wife and daughter brought him food, their personal sacrifice, and the policeman took the transmission and said: "Ah, Jude!" ". And he threw the potatoes right in front of their eyes. Lev Grigorievich died right there, in the “Third Reich"(note: the building "Kharkov" hotel). His wife Rosa with two children was forced to go to the barracks. Rosa and Manya perished, and Lenya – some neighbor said - ran away (got into the car with the killed Jews’ cloths jumped out on the way). In 1949, he came to this house.

An engineer of the Southern Railway Administration, a resident of the city of Lubotin, Ivan Konstantinovich Nesterenko, had on his hands an evacuation slip, so he would be placed in one of the last echelons that were heading eastward. However, when he and his colleagues arrived at the Kharkov-Balashovsky station, where the train was going from, the station management suggested to them to give way their places in the train to the Jews. Everyone who agreed to stay was given an appropriate letter.

Alexander Ivanovich Meshchaninov, the head physician of the ninth hospital (Holodnaya Gora), helped to survive Israel Iosifovich Punkin – before the war was a chief engineer at Vodotrest- his wife Tamara Lyubarskaya, as well as their two sons, all escaped from barracks. Meshchaninov asked his friend Petr Ryshkov his daughter Nina, whose husband was at the frontlines, to help these people. (Ryshkovs then lived on Fedorovskaya Str., 5). “Meshchaninov wanted to help everyone," Nina Petrovna recalled many years later. "He brought the Punkins to us in mid-January 1942 .. . "

To the great regret, the betrayal of a former colleague killed Israel Iosifovich. But even after his death, Alexander Ivanovich did not leave friend’s family in trouble. When Tamara Lyubarskaya in 1943 decided to leave with the children to the front line, Meshchaninov brought her ausways papers necessary for leaving the city.

A few words about I.I.Punkin. In his adolescence he was friendly with Ilya Ehrenburg. As peers, they taking together school entrance exams. Perhaps in Kiev, where Ehrenburg was born.

This likely explains the appeal to Ehrenburg by Tamara Lyubarskaya after the liberation of Kharkov: knowing that the writer and journalist covers the work of the Extraordinary Commission for Investigation of the atrocities of the German fascist invaders in the city of Kharkov and the region, she wrote to him a large letter in which she talked about the tragic fate of her husband and the hardest trials that fell on her and their two sons.