StudyGuide - Courses

Uncovering the Holocaust by Bullets

Watch the testimony video, read accompanying documents and answer related questions.

Access to accompanying documents

Witness

Maria J.

Country

Moldova

Birthdate and Birthplace

1932, Hîncăuţi

Year of video recording

2013

InEvidence link (YahadMap)

Know more

Hîncăuţi, MOLDOVA

Maria J., born in 1932 in Hîncăuţi, interviewed on May 10, 2013 in Hîncăuţi.
Hîncăuţi is a village situated to the north of the town of Edineț. The archives of the Soviet commission state that 47 people were shot during the German and Romanian occupation. Among the victims were 15 Jewish men, women and children. They were killed the day after the arrival of Romanian troops by three inhabitants of Hîncăuţi. They are named in the archives: Victor Andreevich Dascaal, Alexeï Petrovich Papovich and Fiodor Ivanovich Gonchar. Maria was a witness to the rounding up of the Jews and saw the bodies after the shooting.
The Yahad - In Unum team went to the execution site: a cultivated field on the edge of the village. There is a small monument put up in 2008 to the memory of "the fellow Jewish citizens murdered by the Fascists in July 1941". The names of the victims are engraved on the plaque. The monument is not situated on the exact site of the grave, but around 10 meters away on the other side of the road. The victims' bodies were exhumed and reburied in the Jewish cemetery in the village of Edineț.

Maria J. born in 1932 © Victoria Bahr - Yahad-In Unum

Maria J. while descibing her memories © Victoria Bahr - Yahad-In Unum

Maria J. explaining vividly © Victoria Bahr - Yahad-In Unum

Glossary

Tatar (or Tatares)
Throughout her testimony, Maria describes the presence of a “brown man on a horse”, dressed in black. He makes her think of a Tatar. The Tatars were a minority of Turkish origin in the Soviet Union. The man she described was probably a local collaborator associated with the Romanian army.

Historical note on Moldova and Romania
Under Soviet domination, Moldova was invaded by the Romanian army and gendarmes at the end of June 1941. Allied to the Nazis, the Romanians engaged in the massacre of the Jewish population. Antonescu’s Romania was directly responsible for the murder of over 300,000 Jews along its border regions and in Soviet territories that it occupied.

Questionnaire

1.- How old was Maria at the time of the events ?

2.- Where were the Jews shot ?

3.- Why was Maria at the scene of the crime just after the shooting ?

4.- How many bodies were there? Were all the victims dead after the shooting ?

5.- How did Maria and the Jewish victims of the shooting know each other ?

6.- What was the role of the “man on the horse” in the organization of the shooting of the Jews ?

7.- Were the three young men from the village of Hîncăuţi forced to participate in the killing? Does Maria remember their names ?

8.- What did Maria feel about the crimes she witnessed ?

9.- Why do you think that the witness has agreed to give a testimony 80 years after the events ?

10.- Why do you think that it is important to collect and teach about this type of testimony ?

Additional Resources

Access supplementary materials, including articles and further reading suggestions, for a comprehensive learning experience.

Historical notes

Hincăuţi is a village in Edineţ district in northern Moldova. It is located about 21km north of Edineț, the district’s administrative center. Before the outbreak of WWII, there were Moldovans, Ukrainians and Jews living in the village. Jews from Hincăuţi were merchants and farmers. Jewish and non-Jewish children would go to the same school. YIU’s witness Ion G., born in 1928, remembers his Jewish neighbors Schloma and Itzek. Maria J., born in 1932 recalls that there was a Jewish doctor in Hincăuţi. His name was Kliger. His children went to a Jewish school in another village. She also remembers her neighbor Ida.

Sources/Archives

Soviet archives

"Between the 7th and 9th of December, 1944, the Commission examined the witness depositions, declarations and the crime scenes of the Romanian and German occupiers. It discovered two mass graves: the bigger one was about 200m north of the village of Hîncăuţi, Edinet district, and another smaller one was 500m south-west of the village. In the first grave fifteen decomposed bodies were found. The bodies were identified by the relatives as they were not all decomposed due to the nature of clay soil. The bullet traces were visible. In another grave...[illegible] bodies were found. They could not be identified, as they were almost totally decomposed." [Act N°2 of the Soviet extraordinary commission drawn up on December 19, 1944; RG-22.002M.7021-96]