SHEPELEVICHI
Pre-1941: Shepelevichi, village, Krugloe raion, Mogilev oblast’, Belorussian SSR; 1941–1944: Schepelewitschi, Rayon Krutscha, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Shapialevichy, Kruhlae raen, Mahiliou voblasts’, Republic of Belarus
Shepelevichi is located 55 kilometers (34 miles) west-northwest of Mogilev. German forces occupied the village on July 8, 1941, slightly more than two weeks after their invasion of the USSR. During those two weeks a few of the Jews in the village managed to evacuate eastward. Several dozen Jews remained in the village at the start of the occupation.
On their arrival, the Germans immediately appointed a local police force. Among the local inhabitants who served in the police were Semion Vladyko, Makar Golovkov, and a man named Petrok. The Jews were registered by the new authorities. The local policemen frequently entered Jewish homes and robbed the Jews of anything they wanted, threatening that they would shoot them. The Germans also imposed a series of anti-Jewish measures. Jews were required to sew yellow stars on their clothes. They were forbidden to buy foodstuffs, use the sidewalks, or speak with Belorussians.1
Soon after the start of the occupation, the Germans arrested 3 Jewish men in Shepelevichi and shot them near the Mokrov cemetery, not far from Belynichi, after forcing them to dig their own graves. In mid-October, news arrived of the murder of 81 Jews in the nearby village of Es’mony, 8 kilometers (5 miles) to the south; the perpetrators may have used gas vans or may have shot their victims. The pretense for the killings may have been a report by Infantry Regiment 691 that the local Jews there were supporting the partisans.2 Then on October 29, 1941, a truck with Gendarmes arrested the father and uncle of Honya Epshtein and shot them in the neighboring village of Stai. The German Gendarmes (probably Feldgendarmerie of the Wehrmacht) were assisted by the local police, who also took the clothes and boots of the victims.3
On November 15, 1941, all the Jews of Shepelevichi were driven out of their houses and escorted by local police carrying spades to a quarry about 500 meters (547 yards) outside the [End Page 1728] village. Here a military unit with machine guns was awaiting them. The Germans conducted a selection, according to principles that remained unclear. Then they shot about 30 or 40 people, including women, babies, old men, and teenage boys. The bodies were buried in a mass grave that had been prepared in advance. The screams of those who were shot could be heard some 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away.4
After the shooting, the remaining Jews were put into several houses, in what Honya Epshtein has described as a small remnant ghetto. At first the ghetto was very overcrowded. Germans or policemen came regularly to the houses, however, to take people out and shoot them. On December 12, 1941, the few remaining Jews were transferred to the Krugloe ghetto, where they shared the fate of the other Jews gathered there, most of whom were shot in the first half of 1942, except for a few who managed to escape.5
According to one account in the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission (ChGK) report, 144 people from Shepelevichi were shot in 1941, including 57 women and 52 children. This account by Alexander Tikhonovich Dasevich does not mention whether all the victims were Jewish.6
SOURCES
Information on the persecution and murder of the Jews of Shepelevichi can be found in Honya Epshtein, “My Father’s Boots,” in David Meltser and Vladimir Levin, eds., The Black Book with Red Pages (Tragedy and Heroism of Belorussian Jews) (Cockeysville, MD: VIA Press, 2005), pp. 295–298; and 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. 108–111.
NOTES
1. Shenderovich and Litin, Gibel’ mestechek Mogilevshchiny, pp. 108–109, testimony of Ivan Ivanovich Pliskach.
2. Meltser and Levin, The Black Book with Red Pages, p. 295; BA-BL, R 58/219, Ereignismeldung UdSSR no. 133, November 14, 1941.
3. Meltser and Levin, The Black Book with Red Pages, pp. 295–296; and Shenderovich and Litin, Gibel’ mestechek Mogilevshchiny, p. 111, testimony of Nadezhda Nikitovna Sharoiko (née Golubeva).
4. Meltser and Levin, The Black Book with Red Pages, p. 296; and Shenderovich and Litin, Gibel’ mestechek Mogilevshchiny, pp. 108–111, testimonies of Pliskach and Sharoiko.
5. Meltser and Levin, The Black Book with Red Pages, p. 296.
6. GARF, 7021-88-42, Akt no. 55, December 26, 1944, pp. 1 and reverse side.
