It was on Tuesday, May 2Oth, about 5 o'clock in the afternoon. A division of soldiers was marching through the street, also bandits in civilian clothes. They stopped everyone they met and asked him where the communists were hiding. I lay in the cellar. A girl ran up to me and just had time to say, "The soldies are coming." Soon after two soldiers came up and began to persuade me to leave the cellar, for, they said, the pogrom was over and the men were ordered by the commandant to go to the station and be registered. As soon as their names were entered they would be freed. I came out. At the gateway sixteen Jews of various ages were standing, among them a venerable old man of sixty. We were taken to the station. We all had our documents ready, but there was no examination at the station. The soldiers chased us away from the tracks, stripped us of our clothing, leaving us in our underwear, and began to fire on us. The first who fell was Kanevsky, then the older Rotmistrovsky. What happened later I do not remember any more. About ten o'clock in the evening I regained consciousness. I had such pains in my bones and in the stomach that I lost consciousness again, but came to in a few minutes. Dead bodies lay near me. I rose, my underwear was all soiled with blood, and near me I heard the groans of a dying man. I summoned all my strength to get to the dying person. All around there was no one, it was quiet and the groaning was distinctly audible, but I could not find the man. Again I lost consciousness. How long I lay there unconscious I do not know. But when I woke up I realized I was lying next to Kanevsky and it was he who was groaning. "Kanevsky," I said, "maybe you can get up and we will try to go home." "No," he replied, "I am dying. I beg you, find my son and put him next to me. I should like to embrace him before I die." I found his son. He was dead. I moved the father near the son. He embraced him, burst into tears, heaved a deep sigh and died. Driven by fear, I suddenly began to run straight ahead without knowing where, but I kept on running. By some miracle I came to the bank of the river and from there I got home. In the morning I was taken to the hospital. It appeared that a shot had grazed the tissue of my stomach. M. N.
c. Testimony of Niunia Krasnopolsky, Nine Years Old, the Only Survivor of His Family
Saturday, May 17, at four o'clock in the morning, we were all at home. At our house were also our neighbor Maya Lyss, his wife, my mother, my little sister, my little brother and myself. One other neighbor came running to us; her husband had just been killed, she said, and asked us to take her somewhere. Our neighbor and I were going with her. We had no sooner opened the door than about fifteen or so bandits rushed in.."Where are you going?" said one of them and shot twice. Our neighbor was hit and fell. I ran into a room, our woman neighbor into another room, where she also was killed. The whole time I crouched under the bed and saw how one of the