KRUCHA
Pre-1941: Krucha, village, Krugloe raion, Mogilev oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Krutscha, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Krucha, Kruhlae raen, Mahiliou voblasts’, Republic of Belarus
Krucha is located 64 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of Mogilev. According to the 1926 census, Krucha had a Jewish population of 297, comprising 52.4 percent of the total. In the 1930s, the number of Jews in the village decreased slightly.
German armed forces occupied the village on July 8, 1941, approximately two weeks after their invasion of the USSR on June 22. During those weeks, some of the Jewish population managed to evacuate to the eastern regions of the country, but some remained in Krucha, as they did not want to leave behind elderly relatives. Most men of military age were drafted or volunteered for military service in the Red Army. No more than 120 Jews remained in the village at the start of the occupation.
In late September or early October 1941, the German military authorities resettled all the remaining Jews in Krucha on Kozlina Street in a separate part of the village, creating an open ghetto. In October 1941, more than 100 Jews in Krucha were shot by the Germans and Belorussian police, who wore white armbands. German forces of the Wehrmacht liquidated the ghetto on October 10, 1941, by shooting at least 114 people 400 meters (437 yards) south of the village (in 1968, a memorial was placed at the site of the shooting). After the shooting, the bodies of the Jews were thrown into a pit, where a local non-Jew was ordered to arrange them neatly. Some Jews, who feigned death or were only wounded, were buried alive.1
A number of Jews tried to run away to a nearby forest during the murder Aktion. However, the policeman Ivan Skochek ran after them and caught two of them. These two Jews were then shot by the pursuing Germans. At least two others are known to have survived and subsequently joined the Soviet partisans.2
The shooting was carried out by soldiers of the 3rd Company (company commander: Hauptmann Friedrich Nöll) of the 1st Battalion of the 691st Infantry Regiment of the 339th Infantry Division. The order for the shooting was given by the commander of the 1st Battalion, Major Alfred Commichau, [End Page 1690] on the grounds that the Jews were allegedly assisting the partisans. After the war, the former commander of the 3rd Company, Friedrich Nöll, and the former first sergeant (Hauptfeldwebel) of the company, Emil Zimber, were found guilty and sentenced by a court in Darmstadt (Germany) to three and two years of imprisonment, respectively.3
SOURCES
Relevant publications concerning the destruction of the Jewish population in Krucha include the following: Ida M. Shenderovich and Aleksandr Litin, eds., Gibel’ mestechek Mogilevshchiny: Kholokost v Mogilevskoi oblasti v vospominaniiakh i dokumentakh (Mogilev: MGU im. A.A. Kuleshova, 2005), pp. 111–113; Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 12 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1979), Lfd. Nr. 398, pp. 375–378; Pamiats’: Kruhlianskii raion (Minsk: Belaruskaia entsyklapedyia, 1996), pp. 369–370; and Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, ed., Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges 1941–1944: Begleitbroschüre zur Ausstellung (Hamburg: HIS, 2004), pp. 28–29.
Relevant documentation can be found in the following archive: GAMO (306-1-10, pp. 117–119).
NOTES
1. “Kruchanskii sel’savet,” in Pamiats’: Belarus’ (Minsk: Resp. Kniha, 1995), p. 450; GAMO, 306-1-10, pp. 117–119; and Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 12, Lfd. Nr. 398, p. 375. See also Pamiats’: Kruhlianskii raion, pp. 369–370. Shenderovich and Litin, Gibel’ mestechek Mogilevshchiny, pp. 111–113, give the number of victims as 156.
2. Shenderovich and Litin, Gibel’ mestechek Mogilevshchiny, pp. 111–113.
3. LG-Darm, verdict of May 8, 1954 (2 Ks 2/54), published in Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 12, Lfd. Nr. 398; LG-Darm, verdict of March 10, 1956 (2 Ks 2/54), in Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 13 (1975), Lfd. Nr. 429; Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, Verbrechen der Wehrmacht, pp. 28–29.
