"The murder of the European Jews in the Second World War was
unique. Never before did a state decide to kill a specific group of
humans -- including old people, women, and children -- without any
reservation or examination of the individual case, and enact this
murder with the means of State power."
-- Eberhard Jäckel, German Historian and Director of the Institute for
Contemporary History, University of Stuttgart
On October 5, 1942, by accident, Hermann Graebe, a German engineer and manager of a German
construction firm in the Ukraine, and his foreman, came upon an Einsatz execution squad killing Jews
from the small town of Dubno in the Ukraine. He gave the following eyewitness account:
"My foreman 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 the trucks - men, women and children of all ages - had to undress upon the
order of an SS man who carried a riding or dog whip. They had to put down their
clothes in fixed places, sorted according to shoes, top clothing and undergarments. I
saw heaps of shoes of about 800 to 1000 pairs, great piles of under-linen 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 fifteen minutes I stood near, I
heard no complaint or plea for mercy. I watched a family of about eight persons, a man
and a woman both of about fifty, with their children of about twenty to twenty-four, and
two grown-up daughters about twenty-eight or twenty-nine. An old woman with snow
white hair was holding a one year old child in her arms and singing to it and tickling it.
The child was cooing with delight. The parents were looking on with tears in their eyes.
The father was holding the hand of a boy about ten years old and speaking to him
softly; the boy was fighting his tears. The father pointed to the sky, stroked his head and
seemed to explain something to him. At that moment the SS man at the pit started
shouting something to his comrade. The latter counted off about twenty persons and
instructed them to go behind the earth mound. Among them was the family I have just
mentioned. I well remember a girl, slim with black hair, who, as she passed me, pointed
to herself and said, "twenty-three years old." 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 nearly two-thirds full. I estimated that it already contained about a
thousand 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 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 to which the SS man directed them.
They lay down in front of the dead or wounded 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 beneath them. Blood was running from their necks. The next
batch was approaching already. They went down into the pit, lined themselves up
against the previous victims and were shot."
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