SHUMIACHI
[End Page 1819] Pre-1941: Shumiachi, village and raion center, Smolensk oblast’, RSFSR; 1941–1943: Schumjatschj, Rear Area, Army Group Center (rückwärtiges Heeresgebiet Mitte); post-1991: Shumiachi, Russian Federation
Shumiachi is located 120 kilometers (75 miles) south-southeast of Smolensk. According to the 1939 population census, 744 Jews lived in Shumiachi, comprising 21.5 percent of the population.
At the end of July or the beginning of August 1941, about five weeks after the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, German forces of Army Group Center occupied the village. Shumiachi was bombed several times after the start of the invasion, and a number of buildings were also damaged in the fighting as the Germans entered the town. In the interim period, part of the Jewish population was able to evacuate to the east, and men of eligible age were called up to the Red Army or enlisted voluntarily. Around 350 Jews remained in Shumiachi at the start of the German occupation, including some refugees from Poland who had become trapped there.
Shortly after the occupation of the village, the German military ordered the registration and marking of all Jews. The Jews were also required to perform forced labor, including clearing rubble and collecting trash. In October 1941, the German military administration established a ghetto, or “separate Jewish residential area,” in the village.1 Jewish families suffered from hunger in the ghetto.2
German forces of Einsatzkommando 8 liquidated the ghetto on November 18, 1941.3 On that day, after arriving from Roslavl’, they drove the Jews out of their houses in the ghetto and loaded them onto several trucks. From here they were taken to a prepared pit on the edge of the village, where the men of Einsatzkommando 8 shot 320 Jews.4
According to the report of Einsatzgruppe B, dated December 19, 1941, 510 Jews of both sexes were shot in Shumiachi and Roslavl’ altogether, on grounds of “public security and order.” The same report noted that in Shumiachi 16 mentally ill Jewish and Russian children were also shot around this time. The children were from the children’s home, which had been abandoned by the Soviet authorities. They were found living in filthy conditions with severe eczema on their bodies. The senior German doctor, Dr. Raefler, at the medical field hospital in Shumiachi (Feldlazarett 6/562), approved of the shooting, as the children’s home and its inhabitants were viewed to be a dangerous source of disease.5 The children, who were all under 10 years of age, were shot in the clay pit of a brick factory on the edge of Shumiachi by men of Einsatztrupp 5 (part of Einsatzkommando 8), which was based in Roslavl’ under the command of Kriminalkommissar Wilhelm Döring.6
SOURCES
Documents on the persecution and extermination of the Jews of Shumiachi can be found in the following archives: BA-L; GARF (7021-44-635), GASmO; USHMM (RG-22.002M, reel 10); VHF (e.g., # 35186); and YVA.
NOTES
1. V. Doubson, “Getto na okkupirovannoi territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1941–42 gg.,” Vestnik Evreiskogo Universiteta v Moskve, no. 3 (21) (2000): 159; I. Al’tman, Zhertvy nenavisti: Kholokost v Rossii 1941–1945 gg. (Moscow: Fond Kovcheg, 2002), p. 99; Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 19 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1979), Lfd. Nr. 564 (LG Bonn, verdict of February 19, 1964 [8 Ks 2/62] against Wilhelm Döring), pp. 718–720.
2. VHF, # 35186, testimony of Fruma Sapozhnikova.
3. Doubson, “Getto na okkupirovannoi territorii Rossiiskoi Federatsii, 1941–42 gg.,” p. 159.
4. Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 19, Lfd. Nr. 564, pp. 718–720.
5. BA-BL, R 58/219, Ereignismeldung UdSSR no. 148, December 19, 1941, p. 10; BA-L, B 162/27282, pp. 47–49, 60–66, 76–80, testimonies of members of FK (V) 199, based in Roslavl’. All give the figure of around 200 Jews shot there in winter 1941–1942; therefore, the number of victims in Shumiachi must have been around 300.
6. Justiz und NS-Verbrechen, vol. 19, Lfd. Nr. 564, pp. 712–713. Einsatztrupp 5 was most probably also responsible for the shooting of the 320 Jews in Shumiachi.
