On July 15 (according to other sources, July 16), 1942, around 2 a.m., the Germans began to take Jews from the ghetto by truck to the Vyazovenskaya grove, one kilometer west of Mogalenshchina village, about 150 meters from the road from the Tantsova grove to the Passovo state farm (sovkhoz). (Some sources identify the murder site as having been in the vicinity of Gedeonovka village.) The trucks brought the Jewish victims to the murder site and returned to the ghetto for the next group. The Jews were taken to a large trench that had been prepared in advance by a group of prisoners of war. The undressed victims got out of the trucks one after the other. They were forced into the trench and then shot. Those who somehow were neither shot nor fell into the trench were pushed into the trench by the Germans. According to some sources the children younger than 8 were not shot but thrown into the trench alive. Most sources stress that Jews were taken by black trucks that were completely covered and had their back doors locked. These may have been the gas vans where some of Smolensk Jewish victims were gassed on the way to the murder site.

More information: Yad Vashem

Some sources report the mass murder of Jews near a church building in Smolensk. During the period of the occupation the Gestapo headquarters were located there. More than 300 Jewish refugees from Warsaw and about 300 Jews from Kiev, as well as hundreds of Smolensk Jews, were murdered there. The exact date of the murder operation remains unknown.

More information: Yad Vashem