Bila Cherka is a city in central Ukraine. In August 1941, having decimated the Soviet forces in the region, the Germans sent SS Einsatzgruppen executioners into the Ukraine. Many Jews lived in Bila Cerka. The SS with the concurrence of the commander of the 6th Army, Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, executed all adult Jews and imprisoned 90 children and some women in a school.
The German soldiers of the 295th Infantry Division (MP) who were guarding the school hearing the constant screams and cries of the women and children did not know what to do and asked the opinion of their unit chaplains.
The 295th MP was served by a Roman Catholic priest, Ernst Teves, and a Lutheran pastor, Gerhard Vilcek. The two went to school where they saw horrible images of hunger and fear. The two suggested to the local commander of the 295th MP division that was guarding them to free the children. But he refused, declaring himself a fanatical anti-Semite.
Teves and Vilcek met with two more chaplains of the 295th MP and visited Lieutenant Colonel Helmut Groschuch, asking for his help in freeing the children. The lieutenant colonel actually ordered the killing of the children to be postponed , forcing the SS to respect his order as well. But then Field Marshal von Reichenau intervened and ordered the killing of the children despite the letters sent to him by the priests and pastors.
Reichenau, in response, declared that the executions were "retribution for the barbarities of the enemy". It was a permanent excuse for the Germans to murder civilians in general, as in Kandano, Kontomari and so many other Greek villages.
In fact the killing of the children was covered up by the sick anti-Semitic policy of Hitler's Germany. It is worth noting that the murder was committed by Ukrainian collaborators of the Germans.
“I went to the forest on August 21. The army had already dug the grave. The children brought them there. I had nothing to do with the process. The Ukrainians stood there trembling. The children took them down from the vehicles. They set them up in front of the tomb and shot them and they fell inside. The Ukrainians were not pointing anywhere in particular. The cries and lamentations were incredible. I will never forget it in my life. It was not easy for me to bear it.
“I specifically remember a little girl with blond hair who held my hand. A little later they shot it. The grave was dug near a forest. The executions took place in the afternoon between 15.30 and 16.00. They happened a day after the talks with the commandant... Many children were hit four or five times before they died...'' an SS member eyewitness reported.
"Those we wanted to save were killed. Because of our movement it just happened a few days later," said Rev. Teves. This protest is one of the rare similar movements that occurred in the German army during the killings of Jews and not only on the Eastern Front.
However, the German priests and pastors only for the children were moved and protested. They didn't say anything about the adults. The open intervention of Marshal von Reichenau, which places him on the long list of war criminals, also makes a small impression. Von Reichenau was a follower of the "hard line" and encouraged his men to commit crimes. He himself did not face the justice of the people as he died in 1942.
After all they weren't just killing the SS as, after the war, the Germans wanted to spread... and everyone knew what was going on.