On the morning of November 21, 1941 a unit of Sonderkommando 11a forced out onto the street about 15 Jewish residents of building no. 14 … in Yalta and conducted a search of their apartments. Then the Jews were taken to the Massandra vineyards and shot to death at 6 p. m at a pit near the Massandra wine cellar. Their bodies were covered with earth. Only two wounded men survived the shooting. When they returned to Yalta, they were informed on and one of them, who was severely wounded, was caught by a unit of Sonderkommando 11a. He was shot dead. The other Jew managed to escape.

More information: Yad Vashem

On December 17, 1941 a unit of Sonderkommando 11a took an unknown number of the healthy men out of the Yalta ghetto outside the city, collected them, and drove them from one place to another the whole day until evening. Then they were taken to the Red Shelter (guard house) of the Massandra vineyards and ordered to dig two deep trenches at the bottom of the nearby 4th ravine. (According to one testimony, large reservoirs were located there). When the work was completed, they were shot. A day later, on the morning of December 18, 1941, on German orders the Judenrat loaded the remaining ghetto inmates (according to German sources, about 300 people) by families onto trucks and buses. They were told that they were going to be resettled. The last truck took the Judenrat members as well. The Jews were forbidden to take any belongings with them. The Jews were taken to the 4th ravine (or reservoir) trenches, forced to undress, and then driven with bayonets to the edge of the trench. They were taken in groups of 5 to the edge of the ravine, placed facing the trench, and then shot with pistols and machineguns by a unit of Sonderkommando 11a (the unit was commanded by SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Eberhard Heinze). The victims fell into the ravine, which was about 15 meters deep. According to some testimonies, the little children were taken away from their mothers, shot to death, and thrown into the ravine. According to other testimonies, the children were murdered by smearing some kind of poison on their lips or suffocated in gas vans. By evening it was all over, and the Germans covered the bodies with a thin layer of earth. According to Soviet testimonies and reports, in these operations about 1,500 Jews - men, women, children, and elderly people -were murdered. Stray dogs dug up the graves and dragged away the bodies. In the spring water flowing from the ravine washed away the earth and the half-decomposed bodies were revealed. The Germans blew up part of the ravine to cover the bodies.

More information: Yad Vashem