Erwin Bingel

Eyewitness to Mass Murder at Uman and Vinnitsa in the Ukraine

On the 15 September 1941 Lieutenant Erwin Bingel, a Wehrmacht officer was ordered to report to the Town Commandant of Uman, in the Ukraine, and instructed to set up guards on all railways in the area, and around the airport.

He accomplished this, and discovered whilst putting his men in place, that ditches had been dug in the square in front of the airport.

At dawn on the 16 September 1941, Lieutenant Bingel’s men were in place, then they saw a crowd of people brought to the ditches in front of the airfield, consisting of men, women and children.

Lieutenant Bingel’s account continued:

“When the people had crowded into the square in front of the airport, a few trucks drove up from the direction of the town. From these vehicles a troop of Feldgendarmarie alighted, and were immediately led aside.

A number of tables was then unloaded from one of the trucks and placed in a line at distances from each other. Meanwhile a few more trucks with Ukrainian militiamen commanded by SS had arrived. These militiamen had work tools with them and one of their trucks also carried chloride of lime.

The truck now drove alongside these ditches and the men on it unloaded six to eight sacks of chloride of lime at intervals of fifteen to twenty metres. In the meantime, a number of transport planes – Model Junkers 52 – had landed at the airport. Out of these stepped several units of SS soldiers who, having fallen in, marched up to the Feldgendarmarie unit, subsequently taking up positions alongside it.

As could be discerned from the distance, the two units were obviously being sworn in. I was then informed by my interpreter, who was Jewish- which fact was known only to me personally – that he had learned that the people had been brought together following upon an order which had been posted in the streets of Uman and which had been given the widest publicity throughout Uman sub-district by the Ukrainian millita.”

The order was for all Jews in the town of Uman and its sub-district, of all ages to assemble for the purpose of a census of the Jewish population. Anyone not complying with this order would be punished “most severely.”

Lieutenant Bingel continued:

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  The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
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