COL. POKROVSKY: On what date and under what circumstances were you captured by the Germans?
KIVELISHA: I was captured by the Germans on 9 August 1941, in the district of the City of Uman, in the Kirovograd region. I was captured at the moment when our unit and two Russian armies to which our unit belonged were surrounded by the Germans after prolonged fighting.
COL. POKROVSKY: What do you know about the treatment applied by the Germans to Red Army soldiers who were captured by the Hitlerite troops? What was the position of these prisoners of war?
KIVELISHA: I know only too well every form of barbarous mockeries applied to the Russian prisoners of war by the Hitlerite authorities and the Army, for the reason that I was a prisoner of war myself, for a very long time.
On the day I was captured, I was sent in convoy in a large column of prisoners of war to one of the transient camps. En route, talking to the prisoners with whom I marched—I stress the fact that this was on the very first day—I learned that the greater part of the prisoners had been captured 3 or 4 days before the small group to which I myself belonged.
During these 3 or 4 days the prisoners had been kept in a shed, under a reinforced German guard and were given nothing at all to eat or drink. Later, when we passed through the villages, the prisoners, on seeing wells and water, passed their tongues over their parched lips and made involuntary swallowing movements when their eyes fell on the water.
Later on in the same day we finished the march toward nighttime and the column of prisoners, 5,000 strong, was billeted in a farm yard where we had no possibility of resting after the long journey, and we were forced to spend the night in the open. This continued on the following day, and on this day too we were deprived of food and water.
COL. POKROVSKY: Was there no case when the prisoners, passing by water tanks or wells, stepped two or three paces out of line and tried to get at the water themselves?
KIVELISHA: Yes, I remember a few such cases and shall tell you of one particular incident which occurred on the first day of our march. It happened like this:
We were passing the outskirts of a little village. The peaceful civilian population came to meet us, and tried to supply us with water and bread. However, the Germans would not allow us to approach the citizens, nor would they let the population approach the column of prisoners. One of the prisoners stepped 5 or 6 meters out of the column, and without any warning was killed by a German soldier shooting from a tommy gun. Several of his comrades rushed to help him thinking that he was still alive, but they too were immediately fired on without warning. Some of them were wounded and two of them were killed.