1 Execution site(s)
Anna V.: “I saw a truck or two a couple of times. Partisans, Jews and Gypsies were shot. The shootings took place quite often, mostly during the evening. I didn’t go near the execution site, but I could hear the shootings from a distance. I didn’t see everything. One time a German cracked a whip. Sometimes, policemen were among the perpetrators.” (Witness N°641, interviewed in Krichev, on June 15, 2013).
“At the end of January 1942, the Germans brought a group of 23 Soviet civilians in cars to the execution site near Prudok - men, women and children. There were 6 infants that the Germans snatched from their mothers and threw alive into the graves. All the other people were shot and buried.” [Act drawn by the Soviet Extraordinary Commission made on June 1944, RG22.022M/7021-88/41].
Prudok is located 130 km from Moguilev. The Jews were merchants or artisans.
According to the Yahad investigation, there were several shootings in the village. Anna V. (Witness N°641, interviewed in Prudok, on June 18, 2013) often saw trucks coming to the shooting site, which took place in the forest. Occasionally, there were one or two trucks. Jews, Gypsies and partisans were shot. The shootings happened very frequently, most of the time during the evening. Anna could see the shootings from some distance away. Local policemen were also among the perpetrators. After the shootings, she went to the execution site with other locals to fill in the graves with dirt. These shootings lasted throughout the entire occupation. As written in other sources, 8 Jews from Prudok were shot by the Germans in February 1943. We have no more information on other killings in Prudok, but a monument there states that 1,200 victims were killed between 1941 and 1943. It is possible that some Jews from Krichev were shot in Prudok.
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