Extracts from documentary narrative of Piotr Mikhailovich Chubakov.
«MY SMALL MOTHERLAND", 2006
HOUSE IN HOTIMSK. WAR. OCCUPATION
We had a big house in Hotimsk with a trade square next to it. It was almost in the suburbs of Hotimsk.
Life in Hotmisk was quite good until the war began. It was declared on June 22, 1941, which was a sunny Sunday. On June 23rd all the men were mobilized.
Location of the ghetto in Hotimsk in KIM street.
Execution site of residents
from neighboring villages (including Jews) in 1942.
Hotimsk was occupied by Nazis on August 15, 1941. The occupation was rather quiet – no one was killed. There were no fires of destruction. However, all the shops and administrative buildings were looted, not just by the Nazis but also by the local population.
In September, 1942, the fascists shot all the Jewish residents of Hotimsk, including women, children and old people.
The occupation of Hotimsk lasted for more than 2 years. It was liberated on September 26, 1943 – the first regional center of Belarus to be liberated from the occupants.
From the story of Piotr Mikhailovich Chubakov.
I was born in the village of Malunovka (5 km away from Hotimsk). There were no Jews in the village. In 1939 our family moved to Hotimsk, which had considerable Jewish population. Jews were cultured people – there were no drunkards among them. I remember the execution of the Jews from Hotimsk in 1942.
Before 1942 the Jews lived just like everyone else but they had to attach yellow stars on their clothes. Later a ghetto was established for the Jewish families. I do not know how they lived there.
Place of execution of Jewish residents on September 4, 1942. Memorial set up by the victims' relatives in 1947.
Piotr Mikhailovich Chubakov.
On September 4 all the Jews were sent to be executed. My friend Misha, his sister Ida, Yanka and their families were also killed on that day. Our teacher of Russian, Samuil Lvovich and his wife, were killed, too.
I was told that Feoktista Afanasievna Filchenko and her daughter Galina Pavlovna Sidorina saved a Jewish boy, whose name was Yura Naimark (Kenkin). I have not heard of other people that survived.
The memorial was erected in the 60s.
(From archive of Mogilev project "The lessons of the Holocaust").
Piotr Mikhailovich Chubakov,
born in 1929, a resident of St. Petersburg.
Photo taken by A. Litin.
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Hotimsk Jewish cemetery.