Iwan Kotschinskii statement

Extract of transcript of court proceedings

May 17, 1944

The Military Tribunal of the NKVD [prev. tr.: NKVD = people’s commissariat for the Interior] troops in the Kamenetz-Podolsk region, under the chairman, Major/Justice Anikankin and members First Lieutenant Jazkewitsch [Yatskevich] and Lieutenant Novikov, transacted the matter of the indictment of Iwan Kotschinskii [Ivan Kochinskiy], son of Nikolai, in a closed court session in the rooms of the County NKVD in Starokonstantinov without the participation of the defense or the prosecution.

Kotschinskii [Ivan Kochinskiy] was born in 1918, born and raised in Starokonstantinov, Kamenetz-Podolsk District. He is a Ukrainian, not a party member, citizen of the USSR, able to read and write.

Kotschinskii is accused of committing crimes according to Paragraph 54 – I “a” of the penal code of the Ukrainian SSR.

“…the statements of the accused J. N. Kotschinskii.
As a member of the police force I guarded the grain acquisition and purchase facility, military barracks and prisoners of war who were working at the former Sovkhoz [farm] in the Starokonstantinov territory.

In Spring 1942 I was standing guard near the military barracks in Starokonstantinov at the place where the Jewish population was shot. On that day 1000 people were shot, perhaps even more. Graf, the head of the German police, shot the people. The Jews were brought to the place of execution, where they had to lie down. Then they were taken to the pit in groups of 10, after they had previously stripped naked. The SD-chief Graf carried out the executions along with a gendarme whose name I do not know…”

The Chairman—Major of Justice—signed Anikin (prev. tr.: above it’s Anikankin)
The Secretary—signed Vassilieva [Vasilyeva]

The accuracy of the copy of the record is confirmed:
The Assistant to the State’s Attorney of the Khmelnytskyy region
Chief Judicial Counselor: (signature illegible)
N. Sarubin
April 20, 1973
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Note: Translation from German by Roger Lustig, with some editorial changes by Barry Chernick