The destruction of the Jews of Bachmut.
Bachmut in eastern Ukraine. Once a city noted for the largest underground chamber in the world and for its winery, today a sea of ruins as the genocidal drive to wipe out Ukrainians is made by the regime in the Kremlin. However, this was not the first time that a genocidal regime captured the town and in this video we shall look at what happened there to the Jewish population during WW2.
In those days Bachmut was called Artemovsk. Bachmut was the original name of the town, the name may be Tatar in origin. During the early years of the Soviet Union, the name was changed to Artemowsk in honour of an early Bolshevik leader, Fyodor Sergeyev, who was known a Comrade Artem and active in this area. In 2016 as a result of decommunisation, the name was changed back to Bachmut although communists continue to refer to it as Artemovsk.
Data from the 1939 census indicate that 5,299 Jews lived in Artemovsk. They constituted 9.56% of the city's population.
On 31 October 1941, Artemovsk was occupied by units of the German 17th Army. In mid-November, a small SS commando entered Artemovsk, commanded by SS-Untersturmführer Hans-Joachim Sommerfeld. It was part of Sonderkommando 4b, which in turn was a sub-unit of Einsatzgruppe C - a special operational group of the SD and security police, whose task was to murder Jews.
The Artemovsk massacre was one of the crimes prosecuted during the trial of six members of the Sonderkommando 4b, which took place before the regional court in Düsseldorf in 1971-1973.
The court in Düsseldorf declared: At a point during their visit to Artemovsk, the defendant Braune— who was then commander of Sonderkommando 4b— informed the defendant Sommerfeld— who was then in the city with the detachment— about the order of the former commander for murdering all the Jews in Artemovsk, and at the same time delivering instructions to put together lists of all the Jews living there for the sake of their future liquidation. The defendant Sommerfeld then ordered the local police to put together the lists. After that was done, the defendant Sommerfeld took the results to the defendant Braune. A few days later, the defendant Braune again came to Artemovsk, where he supervised the rounding up of all the Jews and preparations for their mass execution. Both of the defendants consulted with an officer from the intelligence section who was on the staff of the XLIV Army Corps, which was then functioning as part of the German 17th Army. Together they inspected the situation in the city and selected a site for the execution, the quarry of a former alabaster production facility. The rounding-up of the Jews went on for one or two days, and was carried out by the local police. The Jews were taken into a large building in the city, and placed under guard. Altogether there were at least 300 Jewish men, women, and children. The Aktion was carried out sometime between the end of January and early February 1942. On an unspecified day, the defendant Braune, his deputy at the time, Thiemann, and some of the members of the Sonderkommando came to Artemovsk to take part in the operation. At night the victims were taken in large trucks . . . to the alabaster mining area. . . . Upon their arrival, the trucks were unloaded and the victims driven about 80 to 100 meters into the mine. There the victims had to lie down in groups in the large cavern, which had been carved out of the stone. The opening of the cavern was located 30 or 40 meters from the parking lot, next to the mining gallery. Near the entrance door to the cavern from the mining gallery, there was an entrance in the rock, which measured less in length and width than the doors. Floodlights were set up in the car parking area and in the cavern where the shootings would take place. After the victims entered the cavern, the members of the Sonderkommando unit killed them with shots to the back of the head. . . . The shooting went on for a few hours, and when it was over, the entrance to the cavern was sealed from the outside.
I do not know if the memorials to the murdered in Artemovsk are still there. I have seen with my own eyes what Putin’s neo Nazi invaders have done to war graves so I would imagine that there is little chance that the memorials are still there, particularly given the deeply ingrained racism of the attackers.
Synagogue Trip-Impressions,Ukraine CC BY SA 4.0
Bakhmut massacre memorial by Visem
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