Publication Date
Monday, November 29, 1943
Image Text
Eye Witnesses Tell Of Massacre Of 60,000 At Kiev 47 MARINES IN SAVAGE BATTLE TURN JAP TIDE With U S title I A platoon (; 20 11 and 17 Iliachine gunner lei by It It Steve Cab:k, Pa. delivered 1!:• 1. heavy land .0 1!:.1:1 1.000 Japane. e kated. The ant; u tituted the most sustained of the Bougainville camp.ugn and ranks among the major battles of microscopic action comprising the Pacitro war. The work-long battle was fought alone and vard front more than four males Inland. TI:e action along the upper reaches of the Pisa liver, has been officially called the "Battle of ('1b- ik Ridge" On Nov. 21. Cabik led the small platoon which successfully cracked the first enemy strong point on a 400-foot ridge. Later events proved this assault to be decisive. although less than 150 Japanese were killed in three days and nights of enemy counterattacks. (':bik's band gained a dominating dearly delinat.ng ener v act and defenses for a thousand yards ahead of our forces. Crack Japanese infantry reinforced the detenders of the sector and began building fortitication>. The enemy obviously was mposing his supply hines. new traits were being built and light a hauled up. Cibik'> Ridge constituted the right thank of our line, facing some 2.000 Japanese defenders. The platoon encountered only minor opposition in mounting the ridge. Empty Japanese foxholes and abandoned equipment indicated the enemy had been unable to complete his defenses on the high ground. But from the adjoining ridge. the Japanese laid down a mortar barrage 0l1 Cibik's force. Subsequently they made four counterattack- in group of 30 to 60 men along a saddle trail. Each attack was repulsed and some of the enemy soldiers fled over a 60 degree embankment in the face of withering American machine gun and mortar fire. Thanksgiving Musical Presented At Watsontown Junior and senior choirs of First Lutheran church at Watsontown presented a Thank: giving sing at evening Re Sunday. assisted by the pastor, Rev. Harold A. Ahalt. Following the processional hymn, "My Faith Looks Up to Thee", the anthem. "Rejoice and Sing", Was sung. A .d. •We Give 'Thee Thanks ( ) d. Today" was presented by the quartet, after which Miss Jane MeCormick sang "Thanks." by O'Hara. Junior choir selection was "He is Watching over Isical . followed by the anthem, •The Lord Is My Shepherd." W. Caldwell Mathias sand the solo, "A Song of Thanksgiving after the anthem, "Praise the Lord, of Jerusalem". The anthem *Hear Thou Our Prayer", was followed by the Junior choir's rendition of "Say A Prayer for the Boys Over There", and "Allegiance to the Flag." Milton VFW Post Will Move To New Building Leon C. Pierce Post. Milton Veterans of Foreign Wars, will move Tuesday into its newly purchased home in the Kieser building on Broadway. Arrangements for buying the new home weekre completed during the past The headquarters will provide a much larger space facilities and activities, and will be entirely remodeled in the pear future. Frederick Padgett Buys House On Race Street Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Padsett have purchased a frame house garage on Race street near Mitth from Mr. and Mrs. Robert Snauffer, of Allentown, and and Mrs. Hiram P. Norman, of hiladelphia. The price was $3,- Mr. Padgett is principal of Sunbury High School. Deed the property was filed today| the courthouse. Editor's Note: Baby war! In literal translation from the Rus4:11 11 meals the women's ravine. But 1:1: oughout all the Russias It win: pered with holler do svetic of mass atrocity by the N./1 of Kiet so horrible tat it almost bailey belief. Henry Shapno, United Press MosCO coot. has just visited Kiev and talked with witnesses. Shafor many years in the RusHill capital, 1. OlIO the few correspondents who speaks fluent Ru: 1. Here 15 HIS story of Baby war. By Henry Shapiro. Kirt. Kus It. (Via Mo: cow, No:. 29. ) (UP) There j. a place 11 Kiev called the Baby Yar. Before the Nazis came it was a peaceful place "The Women's Ravine." Today it is the name of it Rusion sorrow and a Russian hatred. 1. a curse upon the Germans who hurled in whole families until there were 60.000 . . . 70.000 perhaps 100,000 civilian bodlies in the Yar. Baby Yar! I stood by the pit and stirred the sand which covers the mass. Only a little stirring uncovered strands of bloodstained human hair, fragments of human skulls and other bones, children's shoes. And then I stirred the memories of men who could testify of the mass murders that took place there. First there was Nikola Bojan, poet and worker who is president of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars, who told me how it began. And then I talked with three living witnesses of the German effort to exhume and burn every body in charnal mass to obliterate the evidence of the crime before the Russians recaptured Kiey, These B.en were Yelim Vilkys, 33. a former porter: Leonid Ostrovsky. 31, cap maker and Vladmur Davidov, 28. a builder. All Red Army lieutenants and like most of the vicfinis 111 Baby Yar. Jews. This is their story Ne.r the end of September in 1941. guerillas stole into Kiev and dynamited the German commandant's headquarters. Starting tires and damaging buildings. Germans spread reports that Jews were destroying the city. On September 28. notices in the streets, and summoned Russian all Jews. officials Com- to report for "evacuation. They were instructed to bring clothes, valuables and provisions. A procession of 60,000 was driven to the ravine. There were old men, women and children. They were stripped of their belongings, even the clothing they wore, lined up at the brink of the Yar and machine gunned. Then the bodies were re thrown into the pit. It took three days to complete the slaughter. The successive layers of bodies were covered with sand. Vilkys, Ostrovsky and Davidov spent more than a year in the military prison camp near the Yar. Some 25.000 Russians were taken out of the camp and massacred at the execution grounds. Vilkys said: •Last August 14, 100 prisoners, all officers, were taken to Baby Yar. We were lowered into the ravine and told to strip to the waist. "•We will shoot you. you filthy Russian swine.' the SS. guards taunted We were given spades and ordered to out the corpses but there were too many and the Germans brought up excavators. I alone dug up about 5.000 or 6.000 bodies. They were (only 111 the early stages of decomposition because the sand was dry. Many were headless and armless. Most of them were old people, children and babies. "We dragged the bodies with iron hooks 30 ur 40 yards to incinerators. The bodies were put on iron grates, one layer of bodles alternating with a layer of kerosene-soaked wood. Each contained almost 4.000 bodies. Some prisoners were made to stoke the fires. "Prisoners who weakened while working on the incinerators were shot on the spot while the Germans kept cursing even the corpses, calling them swine and dogs. "On September 28 we knew it was our turn to go, so we would not be witnesses." They decided on a dash for freedom. They overpowered their fields and ravines. All but those guard at night and ran to me the three with whom I talked were mowed down by machine guns. Before the war Kiev, third city in the Soviet Union, had a thriving population of 1,000,000. Her Jewish population, then 200,000, now exactly sim
Location of Research
Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
