Kherson Regional Extraordinary Commission to Investigate the Crimes of the German-Fascist Invaders in the Territory of the Kherson Region at the Executive Committee of the Kherson Regional Council of Toilers’ Deputies, City of Kherson (Kherson Region)

The fond includes a single inventory systematized chronologically. Documents held in the fond include a report of the Regional Extraordinary State Commission summing up the assessment of damages caused by and the investigation of crimes committed by the occupiers in the Kherson region, which contains, among other things, information on murders of Jews (including 10,000 persons in the city of Kherson) and on the functioning of the Kherson ghetto; proceedings of the Commission from 1944-45 on the investigation of the mass execution of 8,780 Jews in anti-tank ditches near the village of Zelenovka (results of the assessment of forensic medical experts; lists compiled from documents found at the burial site and via eyewitness testimony; minutes of the interrogations thereof; etc.); proceedings pertaining to the assessment of the damages suffered by residents of a number of districts and population centers of the Kherson region, including the mass murders of Jews in September-October 1941 in the city of Berislav, the villages of Novyi Berislav and Novoraiskoe, settlement No. 33 of the L. Kaganovich Kolkhoz (Novokairy village council, Berislav district), and the city of Kakhovka, with information on the places of burial and the perpetrators of the crimes (1944). There are also materials and information regarding surveys of eyewitnesses, and photographs thereof, in connection with the discovery in January 1965 of the remains of genocide victims during the digging of a foundation ditch in the city of Kherson (at 23 Krasnostudencheskaia Street), with testimony on the shootings of POWs and civilians, including Jews, that took place in 1941-43 at this site. The documents are in Russian and Ukrainian. These entities were established in 1943-44 pursuant to an edict (2 November 1942) of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR. The regional commission was in charge of the city and district extraordinary state commissions and in turn was subordinate to Ukraine’s republic-level Extraordinary State Commission, and included representatives of the public prosecutor’s office and investigative organs, medical experts, representatives of public organizations, and Soviet and party workers. The extraordinary state commissions were tasked with investigating the criminal activities of the occupiers, assessing the material damages they had caused to enterprises, institutions, and citizens of the Kherson region, and also compiling lists of those shot and forcibly removed, as well as of war criminals. The extraordinary state commissions ceased activities in late 1945. However, by resolution (27 November 1965) of the Kherson Regional Executive Committee, the regional commission was reestablished in connection with the discovery of remains of victims of the Nazis in the city of Kherson.